Bury a Statue of St. Joseph for the Intention of Selling a House?

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TimothyH said:
Yes, I understand that it is perfectly normal for people to think that they can read other people’s intention, gauge their love of God and devotion to the saints, read their heart. It is perfectly normal for people with this amazing abilility to determine when others are committiung sacrilege and engaging in superstition and idol worship.

Perfectly normal here, yesssss…

-Tim-
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I totally agree with this. It seems so easy for people to know one’s heart by one sentence or paragraph stated at these forums. It can be very discouraging. Only God can read someone’s heart. He looks at the heart while we look at the outside.
 
I did this for my mother’s house, which many people said would never sell but I believed in the intercession of St. Joseph, as he is such a wonderful and powerful saint. I don’t remember if I buried him upside down or right side up. It wasn’t to hold him hostage. It was to consecrate the ground and to remember daily to count on his intercession and as a sign as a constant prayer. I did not retrieve him because when I returned to the spot I placed him in, he was gone.

I do not see this as being superstitious. Many here have said, it is superstitious because the people depend on the statue and not the prayers. That is not how I saw it when I did this. I was truly in my heart praying for the sale of my mother’s house as it was old and large and needed a lot of work and she had moved and it had become a heavy burden to care for. The prayer on the card had nothing to do with holding St. Joseph hostage but leaning on him as an intercessor, remembering how he led Mary and Jesus to safety.

I am not sure if I would always bury him. I do not believe it has to be upside down. I also use Holy Water around my home. I, too wear a miraculous medal and a brown scapula and had recently wore a crucifix until it broke. All the parishes in my area also have places where you can light candles. I have many statues in my home. These are called sacramentals.

It is superstitious if you think the statue or the medal or the scapula or the candle are what is bringing the answer to your needs but it is not. It is the showing of your faith in God that you know that we can’t lean on ourselves in this life but on the power of God and all good things come from God.
 
gracepoole said:
I don’t actually recall placing him upside down (I was making a joke in my last post). I do remember selecting a specific site – in the garden with the loosest and most rich soil – facing the house.

I find it odd, though, that you don’t want to hear who has practiced this devotion in the past or how many have. I mentioned St. Teresa of Avila earlier, who instructed her nuns to bury St. Joseph medals. St. Teresa is a Doctor of the Church. I’m therefore sort of interested in what she did and had to say… :confused:
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It isn’t that I don’t want to hear, at all, about the saints and their devotions.

But what I wanted to know, is why do YOU do it. Is it something you believe? Or something you do simply because St Teresa did it?
 
Diana_Catherine said:
stjosephsite.com/SJS_Prayer_To%20sell%20a%20home.htm

catholic-forum.com/saints/stj01002.htm

It is a reminder to be in constant prayer.
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And having a statue buried outside, out of sight is more of a reminder to prayer than say a statue sitting in your living room? Or a rosary in your pocket?

That is what doesn’t make sense to me.

You take a 3 inch plastic statue, you bury it. Most of the time, head down. Then, at lease some claim, they dig it up and “place it in a place of honor in your new house.” Really? A 3 inch plastic statue? Check out post 44. This is the statue sold for this purpose. A colorless plastic statue.

How many people put it in a place of honor? You know what that is a good question. 👍 How many people that have buried a statue, found it (it doesn’t count if you couldn’t find it), washed it off and NOW it currently has “a place of honor in your home?”
 
St. Joseph is Jesus’ stepfather. I wonder how I would feel in His position if people were doing things like this.

It reminds me a bit of the “Jesus, take the wheel!” school of prayer.

In practical terms, any house can be sold. You just need to remove impediments to buy. Like one’s personality imposed on the property, price, smells, dirt, clutter, dark colours etc.

We had a spate of home improvement programmes on TV in the UK some years ago and it was amusing to see sellers defend their personal taste to the death while sitting on a quirk-laden property that was up for sale for a year.
 
maryjk said:
It isn’t that I don’t want to hear, at all, about the saints and their devotions.

But what I wanted to know, is why do YOU do it. Is it something you believe? Or something you do simply because St Teresa did it?
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I do it because my parents, and grandparents, and great-grandparents did it. I do it for the same reason I bless the rooms of a home with holy water when we move in, or make pretzels during Lent, or pray a rosary before a family member travels. I find a richness in these Catholic and family traditions. They help to connect me with past generations of Catholics and the full history of the faith as it’s been practiced throughout the centuries. I do trust that St. Joseph will hear and answer my prayer (though again, as always, we can’t predict what the answer will be) so yes, it’s something I believe. I’m not claiming everyone else should do the same. I’m merely asking that we refrain from sweeping generalizations about those who bury a statue.
 
So at some point in the past some a family was trying to sell a house. It’s taking forever and maybe a job is at stake and someone tells them about St. Teresa burying a statue of St. Joseph so that’s what they do. And they don’t all solemnly stand around while the head of the household digs a hole and carefully places the statue (right-side up) inside. Nope. They were probably crazy busy, 10 kids, no appliances and mom scoots Billy and his sister Molly out to bury it to give them something to do. Billy dug the hole and Molly was put out because he wouldn’t even let her dig up even one shovelful of dirt so she didn’t really pay attention to how St. Joseph was buried (upside-down). The very next day the house sold (TBTG) and when they dig up the statue that’s when they notice it’s upside-down and when they tell their priest and he assures them that it’s okay that St. Joseph was upside down since God obviously answered their prayers. And so they told someone and they told someone and so on and so on and so on.

And now kits are sold in Catholic stores. 🎉
 
Bruised_Reed said:
And they don’t all solemnly stand around while the head of the household digs a hole and carefully places the statue (right-side up) inside. Nope. They were probably crazy busy, 10 kids, no appliances and mom scoots Billy and his sister Molly out to bury it to give them something to do. Billy dug the hole and Molly was put out because he wouldn’t even let her dig up even one shovelful of dirt so she didn’t really pay attention to how St. Joseph was buried (upside-down). The very next day the house sold (TBTG) and when they dig up the statue that’s when they notice it’s upside-down and when they tell their priest and he assures them that it’s okay that St. Joseph was upside down since God obviously answered their prayers. And so they told someone and they told someone and so on and so on and so on.
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:eek: I couldn’t ask for a more opposite description of my family’s practice of this devotion. The contrast is frankly stunning. What a horrible and inflammatory mischaracterization.
 
gracepoole said:
:eek: I couldn’t ask for a more opposite description of my family’s practice of this devotion. The contrast is frankly stunning. What a horrible and inflammatory mischaracterization.
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You misunderstand. I described how the upside down thing might have started because there is no tradition that would explain it. Superstitions and other folklore are born when one person ascribes the result of an action and another person embraces it.

Thanks for interpreting what I said in the worst possible way because you are attached to this practice. :rolleyes:
 
Bruised_Reed said:
You misunderstand. I described how the upside down thing might have started because there is no tradition that would explain it. Superstitions and other folklore are born when one person ascribes the result of an action and another person embraces it.

Thanks for interpreting what I said in the worst possible way because you are attached to this practice. :rolleyes:
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If that’s what I did, I genuinely and enthusiastically apologize. 🙂
 
Bruised_Reed said:
You misunderstand. I described how the upside down thing might have started because there is no tradition that would explain it. Superstitions and other folklore are born when one person ascribes the result of an action and another person embraces it.

Thanks for interpreting what I said in the worst possible way because you are attached to this practice. :rolleyes:
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That would probably explain the upside down practice.
 
Bruised_Reed said:
So at some point in the past some a family was trying to sell a house. It’s taking forever and maybe a job is at stake and someone tells them about St. Teresa burying a statue of St. Joseph so that’s what they do. And they don’t all solemnly stand around while the head of the household digs a hole and carefully places the statue (right-side up) inside. Nope. They were probably crazy busy, 10 kids, no appliances and mom scoots Billy and his sister Molly out to bury it to give them something to do. Billy dug the hole and Molly was put out because he wouldn’t even let her dig up even one shovelful of dirt so she didn’t really pay attention to how St. Joseph was buried (upside-down). The very next day the house sold (TBTG) and when they dig up the statue that’s when they notice it’s upside-down and when they tell their priest and he assures them that it’s okay that St. Joseph was upside down since God obviously answered their prayers. And so they told someone and they told someone and so on and so on and so on.

And now kits are sold in Catholic stores. 🎉
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Little did they know, it was actually because Molly was not allowed to shovel soil, because in scripture it is the MAN who gardens and lives by the sweat of his brow; and this symbolic representation of the proper order of humanity moved heaven. The boy dug the earth; the girl held the child (indicated by the less-than-child-sized St. Joseph statue). The “child,” that is, all the descendants of Eve, were entombed in the darkness of our Fall; but life came through humankind. The old house was removed and a new house was built, and we lived happily ever after.
 
QuestingKnight said:
Does it? Then why bury him upside-down?
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His feet point to heaven and away from earth. It reminds us that whether the house sells or doesn’t sell, we are pilgrims here and that our true home is in heaven.

I think that is pretty neat.

-Tim-
 
I am the OP. I really didn’t expect this thread to be going after one page, let alone 135 posts. 😃

-Tim-
 
TimothyH said:
His feet point to heaven and away from earth. It reminds us that whether the house sells or doesn’t sell, we are pilgrims here and that our true home is in heaven.

I think that is pretty neat.

-Tim-
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Strikes me as a bit of a theological stretch…but to each his own 🙂
 
Why would you even do that? Um, excuse me, but I think that it would be better just to ask St. Joseph’s intercession. Don’t even bother about digging a hole an all that mess.
 
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