What is the Purpose of the Church’s Repeated Blessing of Water?

The Baptism of The Lord

The Lord came to the Jordan and was baptized of John not because he was in need of that cleansing, but so that He might fulfill all that was attributable to human nature, which He had assumed, and to show that He had a true body and that he truly was an actual man. He did not want to transgress the law, and so answered: For thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness (Math. 3:15). It was for this reason that He entered into the waters of Baptism. But in so doing, He gave them incomparably more than He could receive from them, for he was in need of nothing. For with His light He illuminated those very waters, and gave them a certain special power by which those who believe on Him, entering the waters of Baptism, are clothed in this power, and are illuminated by Him.

Holy Hierarch Epiphanios of Cyprus

The waters of Baptism would never have had the ability to cleanse human sins, had they not been blessed by the touch of the Savior’s Body. Immersing Himself in the water, the Savior blessed the waters—the deep, and the source of all springs.

Holy Hierarch Ambrose of Milan

Why does the Church repeatedly bless water, when it has already been sanctified by the Baptism of the Son of God Himself?

We sinful people have been renewed through God’s grace, but until our death we continue to carry within us the seed of ancient sinful impurity. Thus, we remain capable of sinning, and thereby bringing impurity and corruption into the world around us. Therefore, our Lord Jesus Christ, having ascended to heaven, left us His living and life-giving Word: He granted believers the right to bring down upon earth the blessing of the Heavenly Father through the power of faith and prayer. He sent down the Comforter, the Spirit of truth, Which abides in the Church of Christ, so that the Church, despite the presence of the inexhaustible seed of sin and impurity in the human heart, might always have an inexhaustible source of sanctification and life.

Keeping this Commandment of the Lord, through the Holy Sacraments and prayer, the Holy Church sanctifies not only the person himself, but everything he uses in the world. In so doing, the Church puts a limit on the spread of sinful impurities and prevents the multiplication of disastrous consequences of our sins.

The Church sanctifies the earth, asking of God for the blessing of fertility, sanctifies bread which serves us as food, and water which quenches our thirst.

Without a blessing, without sanctification, would this perishable food and drink be able to sustain our life? It is not the growing of fruits that nourisheth man: but that it is Thy word, which preserveth them that put their trust in thee. (Wisdom of Solomon 16:26).

This is the source of the answer to the question of why the Church blesses water.

In sanctifying the waters, the Church returns to the element of water its original purity and holiness. By the power of prayer and the Word of God, the Church brings down upon it the blessing of the Lord and the grace of the Holy, Life-giving Spirit.