Posted on 09/19/2006 8:04:31 AM PDT by Cagey
BOSTON -- In order to sell a house these days, people are looking for all the help they can get.
A Boston area real estate agent is among those who've turned to a saint. And she believes it worked.
Facing a slow market -- and a house with a steep driveway -- agent Judy Moore turned to a St. Joseph figurine. She buried it in the yard, head down. And she soon had a buyer.
Moore isn't alone in turning to St. Joseph. Stores nationwide that sell religious goods say sales of his statues are way up. They come with varying instructions, but they all boil down to burying the statue in the yard or near the "for sale" sign -- then saying a prayer for a buyer.
Linking St. Joseph to real estate goes back to the 16th century, when a nun buried his medal and prayed to him for help in getting land for convents.
These days, one theology professor has a more simple explanation: "In times of crisis," he says, "people try anything."
I am Catholic and had never heard of this practice until recently. I was told that the Church does not sanction it. But because it has become popular they have issued guidelines to keep the statues of St. Joseph from being treated in a sacreligious manner.
To me it would be better to ask for simple prayers and to pray that God send a really ethical and excellent real estate broker.
I have a friend (a very liberal Catholic) who was a real estate agent in DC. She told us all about this some years ago. The statue must be buried in the garden head down. Then, after the sale, you must dig St. Joseph up and put him in a place of honor on your mantlepiece, as a show of thanks.
The whole business struck me as more like Mafia extortion than true religion, frankly. Although my friend didn't say so, the wholel procedure sounded to me something like, "Listen, Joseph. Sell me this house, and I'll dig you up again. Or else you can stay buried upside down!" Very strange, and not at all like the usual Catholic way of venerating (not worshipping) a saint, or praying to him for intercession.
From the site:
Can you tell me how many saints there are?
That is a difficult question to answer. In the first eight or nine centuries there was no formal process of canonization. People were recognized as saints because of a kind of popular acclamation. People were believed to be saints because they had been martyred for the faith or they had lived very holy lives. Often their graves became places of pilgrimage and prayer. We have no idea of how many people’s holiness was not recognized. That is one reason why we have the Feast of All Saints.
Sometimes the recognition of holiness was particular to an area or community. Sometimes the reputation for sanctity spread beyond national borders.
It was not until 993 that the first official canonization took place. It was then that Pope John XV declared Bishop Ulrich of Augsburg a saint.
The original edition of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, published between 1756 and 1759, had 1,486 entries. The 1956 revision contained 2,565.
Butler’s Lives is now undergoing another revision. Since not all the new volumes have yet been published, I cannot tell you how many biographies or saints will be listed.
In any case I doubt that anyone will claim it is a complete and exhaustive listing of all the saints or people who are claimed to have been saints.
There is also under way a revision of the Roman Martyrology by the Congregation for Divine Worship. The Martyrology is an official listing of saints’ feasts.
My house has been on the market for 7 months. I've decided to bury my listing agent upside down in the yard and sell it myself. Looking for a nice house in Pittsburgh area? We have a good football team, notwithstanding last night.
Man, I haven't heard this one in about 30 years!
It was meant as a joke. Sorry it misfired on you.
OIC
< |:)~
LOL!!!
Looking for a nice house in Pittsburgh area? We have a good football team, notwithstanding last night.
I really like Pittsburgh but with the way the roads are designed, I'd be perpetually lost.
"I really like Pittsburgh but with the way the roads are designed, I'd be perpetually lost."
We have maps.
Just this one?
Yep, staging is the key.
The first house we bought, every time we saw it, the smiley little mother-in-law was seated in the kitchen.
Wasn't til we actually closed, we realized she'd been 'staged' in front of a hole in the kitchen wall!
My beagle dug one of these up in our garden this summer and it totally freaked me out until someone explained that the previous owner had done it to sell the house. The only thing I didn't get was that we bought the house from a jewish guy.
LOL, and your homepage just about did me in.
Didn't the blessed John Paul II add several dozen more to the list? He was definitely generous to a fault there.
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