I hate to see this

[Tenebrae]

Have you ever gone to an estate sale in a house where there are religious statues, crucifixes and rosaries for sale? I guess the people who run estate sales don’t realize what they’re doing when they sell sacramentals.

 

[Wolseley]

Have you ever gone to an estate sale in a house where there are religious statues, crucifixes and rosaries for sale? I guess the people who run estate sales don’t realize what they’re doing when they sell sacramentals.

If an object has been blessed, it loses the blessing when it is sold. There’s nothing wrong with selling religious objects—you only can’t claim to be selling the blessing that was placed on the object.

I personally like to see those things in an estate sale; I have bought many crucifixes, missals, prayerbooks, statues, etc., at yard and estate sales, flea markets, and so on, that were of a much higher quality than the mass-produced trash coming out of China these days, and for a fraction of the cost.

 

[water]

If an object has been blessed, it loses the blessing when it is sold.

I am not sure about what you said above, but I thought we should not sell blessed items.

 

[lizaanne]

I love finding these items at estate sales, I’m an avid estate sale shopper, and I actually seek out the Catholic homes to look for lovely old sacramentals, and have even found the most gorgeous black lace chapel veil which I now wear to Mass.

I look at it this way - if the family thought so little of the items to put leave them in the sale, I would much rather pay for them and bring them to a good Catholic home where they will be appreciated and cared for, than for them to end up in the garbage dump. And in many cases, after the sale is done, the remains of the house will go to the dump or just sold as a single lot to a junk dealer who will then piece it out at flea markets.

I recently bought an old Bakelite diaper pin that had about three ancient relics and the almost completely gone remnant of a scapular on it. I suspect the owner used to pin this to her undergarments as some women have done. I paid $3 to keep it out of the garbage. It now sits on the altar in the chapel at Saint Michael’s Media. I think it was worth every penny, and I’m so glad to have rescued it.

EDIT - And we must always remember to pray for the repose of the souls of those who may have died and previously owned these items. It is only the right and proper thing to do when taking their belongings into your own home.

~Liza

 

[adrift]

I am not sure about what you said above, but I thought we should not sell blessed items.

How would you know that it is blessed. I have many statues and I have never had one blessed.

I bought stations of the cross off e-bay and the seller was a priest. I have never heard you could not sell a blessed item. I would like documentation if some one knows either way.

 

[Leopard]

It is permissible to sell an item that has been blessed, but not to sell a blessing as such. In practice, this means that if one is selling an object that has been blessed, one may not make the fact that the object has been blessed a “selling point”, or charge more than the items value as an unblessed item.

A difficulty here arises when dealing with “celebrity items”; things that were (or may have been) owned or blessed by a saint, a pope or some similar noted person. Such items may quite legitimately be more valuable than similar “non-celebrity” items due to their association with the noted person apart from any blessing as such, but sometimes the association itself is based solely on the item’s blessing. A person selling the item as an blessed item at a higher price than the item’s “base value” would be commiting simony, but a person selling the item as a historical piece at the same price would not.

 

[fmagill]

This is all fascinating, an example of what a great learning tool these forums can be.

To take a slightly different angle: what if the objects are inherited within a family? My wife’s parents both died a couple of years ago, and we have found a number of old statues, sacramentals and pre-V2 missals stashed away in the attic at their vacation home in New Jersey. Would it be advisable to have some of these items blessed by a local priest, especially since we don’t have any way of knowing whether this was ever done before?

 

[CarrieH]

I have heard of people listing a small, trivial item such as a fancy box on eBay and throwing in a “free” religious article. That way they can claim they weren’t selling the item itself, that it was a “gift” to the buyer for purchasing the box. OK, whatever…

 

[Leopard]

I have heard of people listing a small, trivial item such as a fancy box on eBay and throwing in a “free” religious article. That way they can claim they weren’t selling the item itself, that it was a “gift” to the buyer for purchasing the box. OK, whatever…

If the intent of the seller is to persuade buyers to pay more than the value of the fancy box plus the base (unblessed) value of the religious item, this is wrong.

If the religious article really is a free gift (something that the seller would give away free without purchase of the gift box on request, for example), or if the religious article is not a blessed item and is not being represented as such, then there is no specific problem with this.

 

[CatholicSam]

I recently bought an old Bakelite diaper pin that had about three ancient relics and the almost completely gone remnant of a scapular on it. I suspect the owner used to pin this to her undergarments as some women have done. I paid $3 to keep it out of the garbage. It now sits on the altar in the chapel at Saint Michael’s Media. I think it was worth every penny, and I’m so glad to have rescued it.

What a find! It is the right and proper thing to “rescue” these precious relics and sacramentals if we can. However, it is sad that they’re being sold like that in the first place. The people doing so usually have no clue that what they’re doing is wrong, or what is the right way to handle a relic.

I wonder whose relics those are, Liza! You’ll find out in Heaven and they’ll probably thank you for rescuing their relics

 

[Bennie_P]

Have you ever gone to an estate sale in a house where there are religious statues, crucifixes and rosaries for sale? I guess the people who run estate sales don’t realize what they’re doing when they sell sacramentals.

What I hate to see when I go to estate sales is to find no religious articles or evidence that the people that onced lived in the homes lived by any faith at all. I go to them looking for religious books, bibles and such along with other articles of faith, and for certain other collectables that I collect. But it is sad to see things that family members should have kept for themselves, such as rosaries and gift items from sacraments celebrated. I tend to pray for the former residents as I look at the history of thier lives left behind.

 

[siouxbhoney]

I think it’s great to sell old rosaries. My husband and I are both in RCIA, have no Catholic background at all, and we both just bought some beautiful vintage rosaries off of ebay that we could never have afforded to buy new. I love that they are old and have probably been prayed with for years, and it gives someone a fresh opportunity so love and care for an explore prayer with these rosaries that may have been buried otherwise.

 

[mommyof4]

I am not sure about what you said above, but I thought we should not sell blessed items.

I’ve asked my priest once about this, wondering if it was ok to buy used rosaries from ebay. He told me that it is ok to do this, and just have the rosaries reblessed once I have them, because they “loose” their blessing when they are sold. No biggie.

I was really worried that I had committed the sin of simony when I purchased a few used rosaries. Was I ever glad that I had NOT committed a sin!

forums.catholic-questions.org/showthread.php?t=108141&highlight=rosary%2C+simony

 

[Wolseley]

I was at an estate sale this weekend where I found a nice eight-inch high brass cross with a plaque in the center of the crossbeams with “IHS” in nice gothic lettering. They wanted too much for it, though, besides which, I don’t know where I’d have hung it—I have crucifixes hanging in practically every room of the house already, not to mention nice pictures of Our Lady.