What to do with relic / myrrh

[Patrick Lee]

I was blessed to receive some Myrrh from the relics of St. Demetrius yesterday. The question is, what do I do?

Its in a small foil packet, so it seems incorrect to me to put in one of the small see through reliquaries, if that is even the right thing to do with the myrrh. Do I use it? If a reliquary is the appropriate thing, can anyone point me to a good one online - I haven't had much luck finding an appropriate one.

All advice welcome :).

[Irene]

I have been keeping cotton wool with oil from myrrh-flowing icons inside icon frames - the type of icon that have hinged glass, it was where I was told to put them when I first became Orthodox (It soaks off the gold colour from the bottom of the icon though). In more recent years I have oil in the best containers that I can afford. I was given a pretty crystal container that was meant to hold jewellry and I have some in that, I have also bought another semi-transparent glass container with a ornate metal trim that I found in a gift store and keep some oil in that. I have a small bottle of oil that was labled by the Church and it is in my icon corner as is.

I don't know what you are supposed to do with the oil 'officially' - besides keep it in your icon corner.

I use the oil on my children when they are sick (make the sign of the cross on their foreheads), the oil on cotton that blessed my children when they were babies are still oily and fragrant and can be used now that they are much older.

[Father David Moser]

I don't know what you are supposed to do with the oil 'officially' - besides keep it in your icon corner.

I use the oil on my children when they are sick (make the sign of the cross on their foreheads), the oil on cotton that blessed my children when they were babies are still oily and fragrant and can be used now that they are much older.

You are supposed to do exactly what you do. Anoint yourself and your loved ones with the myrrh and oil. Just take a little on your finger and trace the cross on your forehead or alternatively when appropriate on the afflicted part of your body and say a prayer to our Lord and to the saint from whose shrine/icon the oil/myrrh came.

Fr David Moser