Washing and anointing is a Latter-day Saint practice of ritual purification. It is a key part of the temple endowment ceremony as well as the controversial Second Anointing ceremony practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) and Mormon fundamentalists. It was also part of the female-only healing rituals among Latter-day Saints until at least the 1940's.
In preparation for the temple endowment, a person, generally over the age of 18, is sprinkled with water, then anointed with perfume or oil as a cleansing before God.[1][2] Once washed and anointed, the participant is dressed in the temple garment, a symbolic white undergarment.[3] The ordinance performed by the authority of the Melchizedek priesthood, and by an officiator of the same sex as the participant,[4] is "mostly symbolic in nature, but promis[es] definite, immediate blessings as well as future blessings," contingent upon continued righteous living.[3] These ordinances of washing and anointing are referred to often in the temple as "initiatory ordinances" since they precede the endowment and sealing ordinances.[5]
Like other temple ordinances, washings and anointings are also conducted on behalf of deceased individuals as a type of "vicarious ordinance".[6]
The LDS Church states the origins of these rituals can be traced back to the biblical period, where anointings were used to sanctify individuals and objects, while washings were used for ritual purification.[2][5] The LDS Church introduced washings and anointings in the Kirtland Temple in 1836, before revising the rituals in Nauvoo, Illinois in 1842.[1] The modern LDS Church only performs these rites in temples set apart and dedicated for sacred purposes according to a January 19, 1841 revelation that Joseph Smith stated was from Jesus Christ.[7]
Washing and anointing also plays a key role in the Second Anointing ritual practiced by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, in which participants are anointed as a "priest and king" or a "priestess and queen", and are sealed to the highest degree of salvation in LDS theology.[8] This is the most secretive ritual practiced by Latter-day Saints, and most LDS adherents are unaware of the ritual's existence.[9]
- ^ a b Cite error: The named reference
buerger35was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b John Christopher Thomas describes this Old Testament practice, “This cleansing from bodily uncleanness was a symbol of putting away of the filth of sin; the washing of the body therefore was a symbol of spiritual cleansing, without which no one can draw near to God..." Footwashing in the Old and New Testament, the Graeco Roman World, the Early Church, and the Liturgy, April 15, 2014
- ^ a b Packer (2007).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
ABVWwas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ a b Perry (1992).
- ^ Gaunt (1996).
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
:3was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Hammond, Elizabeth (November 2, 2015). "The Mormon Priestess: A Theology of Womanhood in the LDS Temple". Oxford University Press. ISBN 978-0190248031.
- ^ Brooke, John L. (May 31, 1996). The Refiner's Fire: The Making of Mormon Cosmology, 1644-1844. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. p. 294. ISBN 978-0521565646.
The frequency of second anointings declined after the turn of the century, and they were virtually eliminated under the authority of Heber J. Grant in the 1920s, to the point that modern Mormons are generally unaware of the rituals existence ....