Also called Benedictio ad omnia, blessing for a new laptop, blessing of machines, Catholic blessing of tools
The old Roman Ritual includes a short blessing for any object that has no special form of its own, and its later editions added blessings for telegraphs, aeroplanes and machinery. This page explains that history and gives a simple lay prayer of blessing for a new computer, phone or tool.
Tonight's moon is read when the page loads.
Take care: Holy water is still water: never sprinkle it on screens, keyboards, ports or vents, and keep the device switched off and unplugged during any blessing. Respect the difference between a priest's liturgical blessing and a lay prayer.
A short Latin form a priest could use for any created thing with no blessing of its own. He asks God's blessing on the object so that whoever uses it with thanks receives health of body and protection of soul, then sprinkles holy water.
By the twentieth century the Ritual had added named blessings for new technology, including the telegraph, the aeroplane, the motor car and any mechanical object. Parishes used them to bless factory machines, fire engines and cars.
The revised book groups blessings by kind and includes prayers for tools and technical installations and for means of transport. It allows lay people to lead some blessings with a simpler form that asks for God's blessing rather than giving it.
The Rituale Romanum, issued under Pope Paul V in 1614, gathered the Church's rites for priests outside the Mass. Alongside baptism and the sick, it held blessings for houses, fields, food and ships. One short form, the benedictio ad omnia, let a priest bless any object that lacked a form of its own. Later editions added blessings for railways, telegraphs, electric dynamos, aeroplanes and cars, as new machines entered daily life.
No blessing in these books mentions computers, which did not yet exist. The modern Book of Blessings of 1984 offers prayers for tools and technical equipment, and many priests today bless laptops, servers and newsrooms with them. The lay prayer on this page is our adaptation, written in the spirit of the blessing for any thing. A priest's blessing follows the Church's own book, and a lay person asks a blessing rather than gives one.
A Catholic custom of sprinkling cars with holy water and praying for safe travel, usually held by parishes on or near St. Christopher's feast of July 25. Drivers often keep a St. Christopher medal on the dash, visor or key ring.
Christian protection from evil has long been sought through short prayers to one's guardian angel and to the Archangel Michael, and through older breastplate prayers that wrap the speaker in God's protection.
A Catholic sacramental medal showing Saint Benedict on one side and a cross ringed with Latin initials on the other, worn or hung in homes as a prayer for protection against evil and temptation.
Tell us what you need and we will craft a custom spell, charm or reading for it. Or call to book a reading or a road blessing in person.
