HOLY WATER
Dihydrogenmonoxide is a substance without colour, taste or smell, which
every year is responsible for the death of several thousands of people,
mostly by inhaling it by accident. It is, of course, H2O, water. It is something
we would not ever want to go without.
It seems, people need water not only for their body but also for their soul.
Shores are places of desire, every summer many go to the sea-side, travel
on rivers or lakes. The favourite holiday destination is the beach, many sit
there for hours looking at the horizon and enjoying the sun. And what is
more comforting than listening to the waves. My parents in law had a house
by the sea-side, and it was delightful to lie in bed in the morning just listening
to the waves washing over the pebble. Luckily, it doesn’t always need to be
the sea to make us happy. Just a glance in a fish tank or the sound of the
little fountain in the tub in our garden could be satisfying. Therefore, we bring
in water into the garden or even indoors.
Veronica Strang, a professor for anthropology and sociology at Durham
University researched the relationship of people and water for years, she
says, that water is a symbol for life, for change and for feelings. It is
considered holy in many cultures. For that reason, Catholics cross
themselves with blessed water before they go to mass, Muslims wash
themselves before prayer, Hindus clean themselves in the river Ganges. For
the Aborigines in Australia it is the serpent of the rainbow which gives and
takes life. Celts put sacrificial gifts into rivers and lakes, much to the delight
of archaeologists who find and restored them, like the Battersea Shield.
Water has a large part in the stories of creation of religions, as well as in
science: The first life on earth came with water, and no living being can do
without it.
We need not be surprised that wells and watery grottos can be seen as holy
places even today. Some of the famous apparitions of the Virgin Mary have
been associated with water. Some years ago we visited the Anglican Shrine
of Our Lady in Walsingham, Norfolk. It calls itself a ‘National Shrine’. It
became a place of pilgrimage in the Middle Ages after a Saxon noblewoman
had a vision of the Virgin Mary who instructed her to build a replica of the
house of the Holy Family in Nazareth. It was destroyed during the
Reformation, but received a revival during the 20 th century, for Catholics in
1897, then for Anglicans with the building of the ‘Holy House’ in 1931.
A national pilgrimage takes place there on Bank Holiday in May every year,
regularly met by Protestant picket lines. I am not surprised about this, I found
that there was a grotto and Holy Well inside the church where the Virgin is
said to have appeared, not something I can grasp with my set of mind. It
seems to me too much like the story of a Celtic water goddess. In a similar
way, the National Shrine of Ireland at Knock in County Mao, which we visited
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