St. Joseph is often called the house selling saint because of the tradition of burying a statue of St. Joseph upside down somewhere on the property that you’re trying to sell and praying to St. Joseph for help selling your home.  According to thousands of homeowners and real estate agents that swear by the practice this is the best way to sell your home quickly and for a good price.  But there is more to St. Joseph then his reputation as the house selling saint.  Saint Joseph is a very important figure in the Bible and in the life of Jesus.

In addition to being important because he is the house selling saint St. Joseph is also important because he is the patron saint of families. Saint Joseph agrees to go through with the marriage even after Mary told him she was pregnant, which was a brave thing to do in that culture and at that time.   According to the traditions of that time and culture he could have broken the engagement and publicly humiliated Mary. She could even have been stoned to death for getting pregnant with a child that didn’t belong to her fiancée.

Instead Saint Joseph agreed to marry her and raise Jesus as his own child after an angel came to him and told him that the child Mary was carrying was Jesus and how important He would be. Saint Joseph did everything necessary to take care of and protect his family even when they had to leave everything behind and flee to Egypt at a moment’s notice after Joseph was warned that King Herod would try to kill Jesus if they didn’t leave immediately. Joseph was devoted to his family and raised Jesus with the values that he felt were important like kindness and honesty. He also taught Jesus to work hard and taught him the carpentry trade.

St. Joseph is also the patron saint of fathers because he possessed the qualities that a good father is supposed to have like patience and kindness and devotion to the family.  St. Joseph always provided well for his family and even though it couldn’t have been easy for him to raise a son that wasn’t his own he accepted Jesus and treated him as if He had been his own child.  Because St. Joseph was such a great example of what a father should be Pope Pious IX named St. Joseph the patron saint and Universal Father of the Church in the 1800s.

One of the reasons that Saint Joseph first became the house selling saint is because people, like St. Teresa of Avila, would pray to Saint Joseph when they needed help finding a home.   As the guardian of the family and someone that knew how important a home and family were it was only natural that people would ask for his help when they needed to find a new home for themselves and their families.

Even though Saint Joseph is most famously known as the house selling saint he is important in the Church for a lot more than just helping people sell their homes or find the right homes.   Still, if you need help selling your home then you should turn to St. Joseph, the house selling saint, to help you find the right buyer for your home.   Bury a statue of St. Joseph upside down in your yard and pray to St. Joseph to help you find the right buyer for your house and very soon you’ll get an offer on the house that might even be more than you were asking for.

T. Hopkins