Prayer for ablution

• Wash both hands in clean water and pray:

May this water cast out all impurities from my substance as from lead to gold.

Haec aqua a corpore impuritates velut plumbum ad aurum mutatur eluat.

• Place both hands upon your head and pray:

Purify my mind.

Purga mentem.

• Bring the arms down to your sides with hands in gesture to your body and pray:

Purify my body.

Purga corpus.

• Place both hands on the chest, over the heart and pray:

Purify my heart.

Purga animum.

• Take a moment to focus and become fully present and affirm:

It is so.

Ita est!

Variants and history of the formula

The first version of this prayer was created by pontifex Ovidia Lepida, Jennifer E. Hunt of the ADF^[1] , and it had some grammatical mistakes, but was widely used in and outside Nova Roma between 1999 and 2003, and with decreasing frequency even today:

"Haec aqua a corpore impuritates, modo simile plumbo mutando ad aurum, eluat. Purga mentem. Purga carnem. Purga animum. Ita est!

A grammatically corrected version of this would be:

"Haec aqua a corpore impuritates, modo simili velut plumbum ad aurum mutatur, eluat. Purga mentem. Purga carnem. Purga animum. Ita est!

A later version of this was probably written by M. Horatius Piscinus before January, 2002:

"Haec aqua a corpore impuritates eluat, ut pluvia aera purgat."

"May this water cleanse my body of impurities, as the rain cleanses the air."

A variant of this has been used by T. Iulius Sabinus, from 2005, originally in a ritual for the creation of Dacia provincia:

"Haec aqua a corpore impuritates eluat, ut pluvia terram purgat."

"May this water cleanse my body of impurities, as the rain purifies the earth."

The original formula was revised by pontifex Cn. Lentulus in 2008, but with the words "a corpore impuritates" previously used in a reverse order, "impuritates a corpore" in this form: Haec aqua impuritates a corpore velut plumbo ad aurum mutando eluat. Lentulus also changed "Purga carnem!" to "Purga corpus!". Pontifex Lentulus, however, doesn't use this, but he uses his own formula.

Lentulus' purification prayer

Pontifex Cn. Cornelius Lentulus has been using this formula even before Nova Roma: this is a modern ritual and serves only practical purposes of creating a framework for the ritual purification in the absence of an original formula.

• Create sacred water by pouring a small amount of salt into water in a bowl, while saying:

Numina potentia, date hanc aquam consecrari aptamque fieri ad consecrationem et purgationem rerum et animalium: haec aqua consecrata nunc esto. Haec aqua consecrata est.

• Wash both hands in this salted water, sprinkle it on yourself, on the other participants of the ritual and on all offerings, accessories, objects and tools used in the ceremony, while declaring:

Omnia instrumenta et animalia ad sacra facienda purganda et consecranda hac aqua consecrata purgentur et consecrentur: aqua consecrata purget purganda.

References

1. ↑ http://www.adf.org/rituals/roman/religio-romano.html ADF website