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Dear catholic.com visitors: This Catholic Answers website, with all its free resources, is the world’s largest source of explanations for Catholic beliefs and practices. We receive no funding from the institutional Church and rely entirely on your generosity to sustain this website with trustworthy, accessible content. If every visitor this month donated $1, catholic.com would be fully funded for an entire year. If you’ve never made a gift, now is the time. Your donation will be matched dollar for dollar this week only. Thanks and God bless.
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Q&A

Why would a bishop wash his hands with lemon and bread during a confirmation Mass?

Fr. Vincent Serpa O.P.

Question:

During the sacrament of confirmation, when a bishop is officiating, some bishops wash their hands with lemon and bread in a bowl filled with water. Why?

Answer:

The lemon cuts the oil quite effectively and the bread is used to dry the hands. It sounds primitive to us. But in the early days of the Church these items were available in most places. Today we have modern means of cleaning the hands, but this reminds us that the Church has been around a long, long time.

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