My dear brothers and sisters in Christ,

Christians down through the ages have used blessed oil as a symbol of God’s empowering, strengthening, and healing power.

Blessed oil is a Church-approved sacramental. A sacramental is a prayer aid—blessed objects, sacred signs, or actions the faithful use to outwardly express their devotion and openness to God’s grace. Making the Sign of the Cross is a sacramental. Blessed items like a rosary, crucifix, or scapular are sacramentals. Holy water and blessed oil are sacramentals.

The National Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal offers oil that has been blessed and touched to a relic of Saint Catherine Labouré. I invite you to request a half-ounce bottle for a suggested offering of $19. Also available to order by phone.

Or you may prefer to order the Blessed Trio Set of holy water, blessed oil, and blessed and exorcised salt. Your offering covers more than the cost of these items. The excess flows out to the world—bringing God’s love and healing to souls through Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal.

Click here to find the instructions to be used when blessing yourself or another with blessed oil.

Here’s a story I’ve shared before. It’s an inspiring example of how one AMM member used blessed oil to bless his spouse.

“When my wife was in hospice, she would sometimes get very uncomfortable in between doses of her medications. I would rub blessed oil on her forehead, and every time, it seemed to make her calm and ease her pain.”

Let me emphasize something important. Sacramentals and prayer are never substitutes for taking prescribed medicines or seeking medical attention. Nor are they the same as receiving the sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick from a priest.

Sacramentals are used as a sign of faith in God’s power to intervene in our lives. We may ask for the miraculous. Then, by faith, we are called to entrust the outcome to Our Lord in perfect peace, the gift he promised the world at the Last Supper.

I would also like to pray for Our Blessed Mother’s intercession for you and any loved ones in need of renewed health of body, mind, or spirit. I invite you to send me these names.

These loved ones will be remembered in the daily Mass and prayers here at the National Shrine of Our Lady of the Miraculous Medal. You may also request Votive Lights to burn for your needs and those of your loved ones. 

May God continue to bless all our efforts to serve him and draw us ever closer to himself.

O Mary conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee.

Sincerely yours in Our Lady,

P.S. Used in faith and prayer, sacramentals like blessed oil can open hearts to receive the blessings God desires to bestow upon his children. 

“…they should pray over him and anoint [him] with oil in the name of the Lord, and the prayer of faith will save…”    James 5:14-15