Prayer for ablution
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This prayer is to be said while washing ones' hands in preparation for many of the other rites and rituals of the Religio Romana.
- 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 plumbo ad aurum mutando 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 grammal 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, simili modo velut plumbum ad aurum mutando, eluat. Purga mentem. Purga carnem. Purga animum. Ita est!
A later version of this is 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 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 suggested 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!".
References
