Holy Mother Church wishes everything her children use to be holy, to be a help to Heaven. Her Ritual contains prayers for invoking blessings on the animate and inanimate objects which serve them in daily life—animals, fields, houses, the first fruits of the harvest and vintage and the various articles of food. The Devil but too frequently employs these creatures to lead us into sin, but the Church, by her benedictions, consecrates them and thus neutralizes his power and shields us from his snares. She stamps them with the seal of Christ, that we may know that all these things belong to Him and are to be used for His glory.
But besides these material things used for the ordinary purposes of life, there are others, which, after they are blessed, the Church considers peculiarly sacred, such as the Agnus Dei, the Scapular, Holy Water, Holy Ashes, Palm Branches and Candles. These she would have us use for a directly religious end; she wishes us to look upon them as symbols and memorials of sacred persons, events and truths.