house blessed

Calypso1977

For those of you who own homes, have you had your priest out to bless the home? 

we've been meaning to have ours blessed, but its a bit of a drive for our priest (our church is 1/2 hour from our home) so i know it will take up a good chunk of his day to come out.

does anyone know exactly what is involved with a home blessing, and what an appropriate donation would be?  we were planning to offer him lunch or dinner, btu definteiy want to give him $$ on top of that.

Theresa626

I own a home but I didn't even know a priest would do that.  I would feel weird asking because it seems like a lot for him to come out.  Perhaps there is a parish protocol involving this?  

Calypso1977

our priest said he'd be happy to do it... we just never sat down and booked the date.   we had wanted to get the interior re-painted and make it somewhat presentable before he saw it (not that he'd care - pure vanity on our part!)

Theresa626

I think fifty dollars and dinner is more than an acceptable gift.  

agapecarrie

It is absolutely very important to have the home blessed.  I had a mass said at mine with all my friends over (I'm a church musician along with my friends so it was quite teh celebration). Since I work for the church, my pastor and the associate concelebrated. I gave them both a gift card because I work with them (along with food and drink from the party). If I didn't work wtih them, I would have given each $50.

The reason I say its very important is because of the spiritual warfare that goes on. Evil does exist, and lingers. Houses are the homes of the domestic church which is attacked the most. If there has been people that lived in the house before you that have been involved in activities that hurt the family (porn, divorce, abuse, drugs, addictions, etc) this can bleed onto anyone entering. (Think of when you've gone somewhere and gotten "icky" feelings ).

If a priest has to travel a decent time for it, then up the ante. I'm informal about it because a priest would come if requested simply for a blessing, but it's nice if you can offer them dinner and a visit, and a thank you gift/offering too. It can be a pastoral visit.

Calypso1977

cool, thanks!

we are only the second owners of our home... i know it was blessed by a greek orthodox priest when it was buillt...   still, id prefer a catholic blessing.

agapecarrie

I understand... Greek orthodox has valid holy orders..

however, I still have blessed palms by my windows and sprinkle holy water occasionally, especialy when I'm getting the icky feelings, or having  a hard time in my prayer life.

Calypso1977

i have palms everywhere!  we get two every year so we are a bit overrun.  we really need to burn some of them.

wallyandkristin

I know when my parents started the process to sell our home my mom buried a statue of st. joseph (feet up) in the flower bed out front.  I think we had the priest over to bless it too.  As st. joseph is the patron saint of homes, you could keep a statue of him in a prominent place.

jen2013

I think your preist would probably come to your house and bless your home without a doubt. But I do think as a " thaknyou" you could provide dinner/lunch or something like that. maybe money, but we discussed this the other day and they basically just said to make them a meal  lol

clearheavens

The home I'm in now was blessed by our priest.  We gave him $100 as a donation and we invited him to dinner in our new home.