Many customers have asked us about the practice of burying a St Joseph Statue to sell their homes. We have come across a great deal of superstition surrounding this when our customers sheepishly ask about “What saint do I bury to sell my house?” As Catholics it is important to rise above many of the popular notions that have evolved over this action and to develop a more mature behavior based on Faith and not superstition.
The origins of the practice of burying a St Joseph statue are blurred in a variety of stories. As best as we have found, it has its beginnings in a story of a convent of nuns in Renaissance Italy who wished to sell their over crowded convent so that they could move into a bigger one. After many months they had no success, so after many hours of prayer they were inspired to direct their prayers to ask St Joseph to intercede for them. They believed that since St. Joseph was responsible for the welfare of the Holy Family and is the patron of families everywhere, he would be an effective powerful intercessor in the selling of their convent home. As a symbolic gesture and as a demonstration of their Faith, the sisters buried a small statue of St Joseph to symbolize that all their worries and concern were “buried” and given up to God through St Joseph. They continued their prayers and within 9 days their convent was sold at a favorable price.
The practice fell out of popularity until the 1980’s when we noticed that people were asking for “small St Joseph statues to help sell their home.” We observed that those who said the powerful St Joseph Novena had the greatest success. A Novena is a prayer that one says for 9 days. We also noticed at that time that several enterprising manufactures began marketing a St Joseph Home Sale Kit that contained the statue, the novena prayer and a brief description of the origin of the practice. So we began to carry the St Joseph Home sale kits in our store
The notion of where and how to bury the statue is the part of this practice that falls into the area of superstition. Near the For Sale Sign? Statue upside down? Right side up? In the day? At night? Under a full moon? God does not care. God does care about devout prayer, setting an honest, fair price and trusting in Him to provide for you. If done with this attitude, we are confident you too will have great success with the St Joseph Home Sale Kit as hundreds of our customers have done.
The origins of the practice of burying a St Joseph statue are blurred in a variety of stories. As best as we have found, it has its beginnings in a story of a convent of nuns in Renaissance Italy who wished to sell their over crowded convent so that they could move into a bigger one. After many months they had no success, so after many hours of prayer they were inspired to direct their prayers to ask St Joseph to intercede for them. They believed that since St. Joseph was responsible for the welfare of the Holy Family and is the patron of families everywhere, he would be an effective powerful intercessor in the selling of their convent home. As a symbolic gesture and as a demonstration of their Faith, the sisters buried a small statue of St Joseph to symbolize that all their worries and concern were “buried” and given up to God through St Joseph. They continued their prayers and within 9 days their convent was sold at a favorable price.
The practice fell out of popularity until the 1980’s when we noticed that people were asking for “small St Joseph statues to help sell their home.” We observed that those who said the powerful St Joseph Novena had the greatest success. A Novena is a prayer that one says for 9 days. We also noticed at that time that several enterprising manufactures began marketing a St Joseph Home Sale Kit that contained the statue, the novena prayer and a brief description of the origin of the practice. So we began to carry the St Joseph Home sale kits in our store
The notion of where and how to bury the statue is the part of this practice that falls into the area of superstition. Near the For Sale Sign? Statue upside down? Right side up? In the day? At night? Under a full moon? God does not care. God does care about devout prayer, setting an honest, fair price and trusting in Him to provide for you. If done with this attitude, we are confident you too will have great success with the St Joseph Home Sale Kit as hundreds of our customers have done.
Can only speak for myself. We sold our home in less than a month,
ReplyDeleteI put a small St.Joseph statue in the ground in front of the house and faithfully said the prayers. Before we moved, I dug him up and placed him in the curio at our new place - a special place of honor to the patron of homes sales! Oh, I bought the kit from giftswithlove.com!