Robert,
Any priest can bless oil. Catholics in the Latin Rite must refrain from using it when praying for the sick in a Liturgical Setting as it can confuse the faithful and look like the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick. Any priest worth his salt will ask a layperson why they want oil blessed and for what purpose they intend to use it. He certainly shouldn't bless a large amount.
It's customary that olive oil be used. But I'm not sure that it must be olive oil.
Just a quick note regarding the "3 days of Darkness".
This is a private revelation, which has been approved, but that doesn't mean it's actually going to happen. When a private revelation is approved, all it means is that the message isn't heretical. We should always be prepared for the Lord's Return and be about reaching souls. We do that with the Gospel by sharing Jesus Christ and the need to entrust our lives to Him. It's best not to try to "scare" people into the Kingdom. We want conversions to be genuine. There is nothing wrong with believing in a private revelation. Obviously, the Church has approved it, but your primary source of information is the Holy Scriptures and the Magisterial Teachings of the Church. This holds for any study of the End Times as well as any other doctrine.
Sadly, when it comes to the End Times, people fall into extreme camps.
- There are those who totally ignore any study of them, as though it's taboo.
- Then there exists the opposite extreme, where people are so focused on the End Times that they forget to live out the Gospel and the spiritual and corporal works of Mercy.
This group often tends to ignore what Scripture says and what the Church teaches us in the Catechism in favor of private revelations and apparitions, even chasing those revelations and apparitions that have yet to be approved or indeed have been rejected by the Church.
Any approved private revelation absolutely must be understood in the context of public revelation . . . that is primarily Sacred Scripture as interpreted by Holy Mother Church.
John
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