St Joseph Novena to Sell a House: Prayers and the Statue

The St Joseph novena to sell a house is nine days of prayer in which we hand the sale of our home to the foster-father of Our Lord: the man who found no room at Bethlehem, made a home for the Holy Family in Egypt and again at Nazareth, and provided a roof for the Son of God. Below are the whole novena, the classic prayers to St Joseph for selling a home, and a frank account of burying his statue. If the devotion itself is new to you, begin with what a novena is.

The St Joseph novena to sell a house

Each day, make the Sign of the Cross, say the daily prayer, the petition for the sale and the prayer of the day, and close with an Our Father, a Hail Mary and a Glory Be.

The daily prayer: "O glorious St Joseph"

This opening prayer is a devotional composition of unknown authorship, long used in parish novenas and prayer-books to begin each day. The other great nine-day prayer, "Ever-blessed and glorious Joseph", belongs to the St Joseph novena for every need; here we keep the shorter one, which leaves room for the petition of the sale:

O glorious St Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, to thee do we raise our hearts and hands to implore thy powerful intercession in obtaining from the benign Heart of Jesus all the helps and graces necessary for our spiritual and temporal welfare, particularly the grace of a happy death and the special favour we now implore: (here name the sale of your house).

O Guardian of the Word Incarnate, we feel animated with confidence that thy prayers in our behalf will be graciously heard before the throne of God. Amen.

The petition for the sale of the house

The petition below is our own wording, not a traditional text. Say it each day after the daily prayer, naming the house plainly:

O good St Joseph, who knewest what it was to find no room at Bethlehem, and to make a home again in Egypt and at Nazareth, I commend to thee this house (name it). Obtain for us, if it be the will of God, a good and honest buyer, a just price, and a sale concluded in peace and in good time. Lead to this door the family God intends to live here, and bless them in it. Keep me from anxiety and from every dishonest dealing; and whatever comes, teach me to trust the providence of thy Son, who promised that all these things shall be added unto those who seek first the kingdom of God. Amen.

The nine days

The prayers of the nine days are also our own wording, each following one step of St Joseph's life.

Day 1: the stable of Bethlehem

St Joseph, who didst knock in vain at the doors of Bethlehem because there was no room for thee in the inn, have pity on all who seek a home. Bring to my house someone who truly needs it, and let it shelter them as the poor stable sheltered the Child. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 2: the flight into Egypt

St Joseph, who didst rise in the night at the angel's word and leave thy house without complaint, give me a heart detached from the walls I must leave. Help me to let go of this home freely, as thou didst let go of thine for the sake of Jesus. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 3: the return to Nazareth

St Joseph, who didst bring the Holy Family safely home to Nazareth, guide every step of this move: the papers, the visits, the offers and the signing. Let us arrive where God would have us live. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 4: the carpenter's workshop

St Joseph, honest workman, who didst sell the work of thy hands at a just price, keep this sale free of all deceit. Let me speak truthfully of the house and its faults, ask a fair price, and deal fairly with all who have a part in it. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 5: the hidden years

St Joseph, who didst live the long hidden years of Nazareth waiting on the hour of God, give me patience while the house waits for a buyer. When the calls do not come, keep me from fretting and teach me to pray. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 6: the loss in the Temple

St Joseph, who didst seek the Child Jesus three days in sorrow, thou knowest the anxiety of a father who cannot provide what his family needs. Calm my worry about money, debts and dates, and turn my fear into confident prayer. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 7: the just man

St Joseph, whom the Gospel calls a just man, make me just in this sale: grateful to those who help me, patient with those who bargain, and free from envy and resentment if things go slowly. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 8: the family who will come

St Joseph, head of the Holy Family, I pray now for the strangers who will make this house their home. Bless them, and may this house be for them a little Nazareth. (Name your intention.) Amen.

Day 9: the house not made with hands

St Joseph, patron of a happy death, remind me that we have not here a lasting city. Whether this house sells soon or late, obtain for me the one home that cannot be lost. I thank thee for all thou hast done and wilt do. (Name your intention.) Amen.

A prayer to St Joseph to sell a house: "To thee, O blessed Joseph"

Many close each day with the prayer of Pope Leo XIII from his encyclical Quamquam pluries (1889), known by its Latin opening Ad te, beate Ioseph. We give it as the Raccolta carries it (no. 476):

To thee, O blessed Joseph, do we come in our tribulation, and having implored the help of thy most holy Spouse, we confidently invoke thy patronage also. Through that charity which bound thee to the immaculate Virgin Mother of God and through the paternal love with which thou embraced the Child Jesus, we humbly beg thee to graciously regard the inheritance which Jesus Christ has purchased by His Blood, and with thy power and strength to aid us in our necessities.

O most watchful Guardian of the Holy Family, defend the chosen children of Jesus Christ; O most loving father, ward off from us every contagion of error and corrupting influence; O our most mighty protector, be propitious to us and from heaven assist us in our struggle with the power of darkness; and, as once thou rescued the Child Jesus from deadly peril, so now protect God's Holy Church from the snares of the enemy and from all adversity; shield, too, each one of us by thy constant protection, so that, supported by thy example and thy aid, we may be able to live piously, to die holy, and to obtain eternal happiness in heaven. Amen.

St Joseph prayer for selling a home: "O St Joseph, whose protection"

This prayer of the prayer-books places "all my interests and desires" in his hands, which is exactly what a seller does. It often circulates with a legend about its great age and printed promises that have no foundation; our page on the prayer to St Joseph tells that story. The words themselves are sound:

O St Joseph, whose protection is so great, so strong, so prompt before the throne of God, I place in thee all my interests and desires. O St Joseph, do assist me by thy powerful intercession, and obtain for me from thy divine Son all spiritual blessings, through Jesus Christ, Our Lord; so that, having engaged here below thy heavenly power, I may offer my thanksgiving and homage to the most loving of Fathers.

O St Joseph, I never weary contemplating thee, and Jesus asleep in thy arms; I dare not approach while He reposes near thy heart. Press Him in my name and kiss His fine head for me, and ask Him to return the kiss when I draw my dying breath. St Joseph, Patron of departing souls, pray for me. Amen.

St Joseph prayer to sell a house quickly: the Memorare to St Joseph

When a closing date presses and there is time for one prayer only, the faithful turn to the Memorare addressed to St Joseph, a devotional adaptation of the Memorare of Our Lady:

Remember, O most chaste spouse of the Virgin Mary, that never was it known that anyone who implored thy help and sought thy intercession was left unassisted. Full of confidence in thy power, I fly unto thee and beg thy protection. Despise not, O Guardian of the Redeemer, my humble supplication, but in thy bounty hear and answer me. Amen.

Urgency is allowed in prayer; setting God a deadline is not. The Litany of St Joseph, approved by St Pius X in 1909, makes a fitting close on the last evening, and if the need is also one of work or income, the novena to St Joseph for a job can be joined to this one.

A printable prayer to St Joseph to sell a house

The full text of the novena and every prayer is above, and this page prints as it is. Better still, install Join early access here.: its novenas set the day's text before you, remind you to pray, work offline, and give the prayers to St Joseph in Latin and English. Join early access here.

Burying a St Joseph statue to sell a house

Most people who turn to St Joseph when selling a home ask first about the statue. In its common form, a small statue of the saint is buried in the yard, often head down, near the "For Sale" sign or facing the house, and dug up and set in a place of honour once the sale closes. It is now sold as a "St Joseph house selling kit" with statue and printed prayer.

Where the custom comes from

Its origin is obscure. Popular accounts trace it to St Teresa of Avila, who is said to have had her nuns bury medals of St Joseph on land she hoped to obtain for her convents. We have found no account of such a burial in her own writings. What those writings do show is a boundless confidence in St Joseph: she dedicated to him her first reformed convent at Avila (1562), and in her Life she wrote, "I cannot call to mind that I have ever asked him at any time for anything which he has not granted." The upside-down statue in the flowerbed is a much later habit, spread chiefly in America.

Why it goes wrong

The statue is not the problem. Images of the saints are holy things, and the Council of Trent teaches that the honour shown to them "is referred to the prototypes which those images represent." The trouble is the burying used as a technique. The Catechism of St Pius X defines superstition as "any devotion that is contrary to the teaching and practice of the Church; as also the ascribing to any action or any thing whatever a supernatural virtue which it does not possess."

A statue planted upside-down so that the saint will be "uncomfortable" until he obliges us is a talisman, a lever on God, and that is exactly what the Catechism condemns. St Teresa herself, in the very passage where she praises St Joseph, rejects devotions of a "ceremoniousness" she knew to be "unseemly and superstitious." For the wider teaching, see what God says about superstition.

Many who buried a statue simply did what a relative or a realtor told them, and said a prayer as they did it. The prayer was the good part, and it is the part to keep.

The right way: a statue honoured in the home

Keep the statue, but give it the place a saint's image deserves. Set St Joseph (or St Joseph the Worker with his tools) on a shelf or home altar, have it blessed, and pray the novena before it as a family. Holy water in the rooms and the priest's blessing of the house from the Rituale Romanum are true sacramentals, used as the Church intends. When the house sells, take St Joseph with you to the new home: not under the lawn, but at the heart of the household.

How to pray the novena well

A novena to sell a house may be begun on any day; the need sets the calendar. Some begin it on a Wednesday, the day of the week traditionally given to St Joseph, or pray it before his feast of 19 March (first class in the 1962 calendar) or St Joseph the Worker on 1 May. Pray at a fixed hour, name the intention the same way each day, and join to it where you can a Mass, a Communion or a decade of the Rosary.

Do the human work as well: price the house honestly and tell the truth about its faults. "Unless the Lord build the house, they labour in vain that build it" (Psalm 126:1), yet He ordinarily builds through our labour, as through Joseph's at Nazareth. End every day with the words that make every petition safe: Thy will be done. St Teresa adds a consolation: "If the petition be in any way amiss, he directs it aright for my greater good."

Who is St Joseph, and why we bring him our houses

St Joseph, spouse of the Blessed Virgin and foster-father of Our Lord, was "a just man" (Matthew 1:19), of the house of David and a carpenter by trade. Nearly every act the Gospels record of him concerns the safety of a household. He sought shelter at Bethlehem when there was no room in the inn (Luke 2:7), led the Holy Family into Egypt and back (Matthew 2:13-23), and kept the house of Nazareth, where the Son of God "was subject to them" (Luke 2:51). Tradition applies to him the words of Pharaoh about the patriarch Joseph of Egypt, who kept the granaries in the famine: "Go to Joseph" (Genesis 41:55).

Devotion to him grew slowly in the West, as Butler records: a Mass in his honour appears at Rome in 1505, Gregory XV made his feast a holiday of obligation in 1621, and Pius IX proclaimed him Patron of the universal Church in 1870. For his whole life and titles, see our page on St Joseph, and for a nine-day devotion to the whole household of Nazareth, the Holy Family novena.

Frequently Asked Questions

How do you bury St Joseph to sell a house?

The kits say to bury a small statue head down in the front yard and dig it up once the house is sold. We do not recommend it. If you have already buried one, there is no cause for alarm: dig it up, clean it, set it in honour indoors, and pray the novena before it.

Where do you bury a St Joseph statue to sell a house?

The kits name the front yard or the flowerbed by the sign. The better place is not the ground but a mantel or home altar in the house you are selling, and afterwards in the new one.

Where can I buy a St Joseph statue for selling a house?

Any Catholic bookshop or church goods store sells statues of St Joseph, including St Joseph the Worker. No "house selling kit" is needed: an ordinary, well-made statue that can stand in honour in your home is better. Ask a priest to bless it.

Is there a prayer to say when burying St Joseph to sell a house?

The kits print short prayers of uneven quality. Say instead the traditional prayers above, with the petition for the sale, before the statue standing in your home rather than over a hole in the lawn.

Does St Joseph help sell a house?

St Joseph helps those who ask him, by his intercession before God, not on command. He may obtain something better than we asked: a delay that spares us a bad bargain, or a buyer who needed the house more than we knew.

How does St Joseph help sell a house?

He helps as every saint helps, by praying for us. The Catechism of St Pius X teaches that we should honour and invoke the Angels and Saints, "because it is a good and useful practice highly commended by the Church; for they are God's friends and our intercessors with Him." St Joseph, Patron of the universal Church, asks of his Son what our sale needs: the right buyer, honesty, patience and peace.

The Iter Fidei app carries the novenas, the prayers to St Joseph and his Litany in Latin and English, with a daily reminder for each of the nine days. Join early access here.

Sources. The Holy Bible, Douay-Rheims (Genesis 41:55; Psalm 126:1; Matthew 1:19; 2:13-23; 6:33; Luke 2:7, 48-51; Hebrews 13:14). Butler's Lives of the Saints, 19 March, St Joseph. St Teresa of Jesus, The Life of St Teresa of Jesus, ch. VI (tr. David Lewis). Council of Trent, Session XXV, decree on the invocation and veneration of saints and of sacred images. Catechism of St Pius X, Part III, on the First Commandment (superstition; the invocation of the Saints). The Raccolta, no. 476 (Ad te, beate Ioseph). Pope Leo XIII, encyclical Quamquam pluries (1889). Pope Pius IX, decree Quemadmodum Deus (1870). The Litany of St Joseph (approved by Pope St Pius X, 1909). Rituale Romanum, blessing of houses. The prayers O glorious St Joseph, faithful follower of Jesus Christ, O St Joseph, whose protection is so great and the Memorare to St Joseph, as carried in Catholic prayer-books.