This is a serious problem inasmuch as he has already bought a house in another state.
When this had been going on for more than a year, he asked me if I would come by for the St. Joseph ritual.
The reader probably has heard of this practice, which involves burying a statue of St. Joseph – upside-down and facing the house – and invoking the saint’s intercession in the matter of the sale.
No one seems to know with certainty where this tradition originated, but it has generated an industry of its own.
Purveyors offer kits containing everything a prospective home seller needs.
Some of these kits sell for a few dollars, but I saw one priced at more than $27, including a pewter statue, a protective bag, printed instructions, and a laminated card with the prayer to St. Joseph.
Some websites where these kits are sold include testimonials from folks whose houses were sold immediately or soon after the ritual.
Although I made it clear that the ceremony of the statue was superstitious, I went along because prayer was to be a part of this event, and because my neighbor is a generous man who has devoted many hours to helping people in our community – including me – with home computers and other electronic doo-dads.
As about a half dozen of our neighbors gathered around the flower bed in front of the house, it occurred to me that others watching from afar might conclude that the man’s cat had died and was being given a dignified send-off.
My neighbor took the prayer seriously enough that he duplicated it so that everyone present could not only join in during that gathering but take it home and continue to recite it.
I have since found that this prayer has been widely broadcast on the Internet, usually with an explanation that it dates from 1505, when it was sent by the pope to the Holy Roman Emperor, Charles V, who was about to engage in battle.
Don’t believe everything you read on the web. The emperor in 1505 was Maximilian I and, so far as I can tell, he didn’t engage in any significant battle that year. Charles V succeeded him, but not until 1518.
On some websites, this prayer is accompanied by a guarantee that if you recite it every day for nine days, your petition will be granted. “It has never been known to fail,” I have read again and again.
As it turns out, the prayer says nothing about selling a house nor about any other specific need.
It simply asks St. Joseph to intercede with Jesus for “all spiritual blessings.”
This prayer has nothing to do with inanimate objects such as statues that have no intrinsic power, and it implies no guaranteed response from God – certainly not a guaranteed manipulation of a prospective home buyer.
In itself, the prayer is in keeping with the teaching in the Catechism of the Catholic Church that the object of our petitions should be, as Jesus taught, the desire for and the search for the reign of God and – the Catechism says – “for what is necessary to welcome it and cooperate with its coming.’’
We depend on God to determine what is “necessary.”
That’s why – whether or not things go exactly as we want them to – we pray, in the words of petition that Jesus gave us, “your kingdom come, your will be done.”
Charles Paolino is a member of the RENEW staff and a permanent Deacon in the Diocese of Metuchen.
