The difference is between have to pay and should pay. You are paying the priest a stipend. The original poster was asking about what is customary. That will vary parish by parish. Some parishes are small and require very little travel, thus the customary stipend can be pretty small. Some parishes (i.e. in Texas) can be very large, requiring hours of travel. I assume the customary stipend would be larger there. Sometimes the person may even not live in the priests geographic parish, so the priest has to travel even farther. Also I would assume the customary donation might vary depending on the relative wealth of the area/people. The customary donation in Beverly Hills is probably a lot higher then one in inner city Chicago.
It’s not that you “have to” pay a priest to bless your house (unless your particular parish setup some weird requirement - which I’m sure would be waived anyway if you couldn’t afford it). It’s more a thank you to the priest for taking his time and using his resources to come out and bless your house when he could otherwise be staying at home to relax, praying, or doing his other duties. I know in some of the larger parishes (or smaller parishes that cover larger areas due to being rural), priests will only bless houses when asked and will not offer (simply because it’s impractical and nearly impossible to get to everyone).
It is not required. Priest do not have a source of income…and depend a lot on the generosity of parishioners. A nice home cooked meal would suffice. He usually will not ask for money…but we give it out of generosity and a way to say thanks for coming out here to bless our house.
Actually our priest said that very few people actually ask for this anymore.
Our priest never actually asked for a stipend, he only offered up what the customary donation was when we asked.
Priests get a salary.
Priests dont get a salary?
Priests dont get a salary?
Just make sure if you are doing this you arrange it with the priest first. They may assume they are only going to be there for the amount of time the blessing requires. They may have something to go to right after the blessing. So a) don’t feel slighted if they can’t stay b) you may not want to put them on the spot to have to refuse your hospitality.
It is not generally a salary as I understand it.
For a religious order priest, this might be true. A diocesan priest, though? He gets a salary.
It’s not “paying for a blessing”. sigh This idea really needs to be gotten rid of. It’s simply showing your appreciation for your priest’s time and energy. How many of us go to restaurants and tip our servers without thinking twice about whether or not it’s absurd to pay someone for doing her job?