House Blessing

A home set apart for God

A house blessing is the service in which the priest comes to where you live, prays through the rooms, anoints the walls, and sprinkles them with holy water. It is one of the most familiar of the trebas — the occasional services the Church offers for the particular needs of her people — and one of the most loved, because it brings the prayer of the Church out of the temple and into the ordinary place where a family actually spends its life.

The English name is the precise one. A church is consecrated, set apart permanently for sacred use; a house is blessed. The prayers ask God's blessing on the dwelling and on those living in it — on their Christian life and their doing of good works — and call upon the Holy Spirit to drive out every work of the evil one.

Behind it is a conviction that is simple and physical. Grace is not confined to the church building. The same God who sanctifies bread and wine, water and oil, also sanctifies wood and plaster, kitchens and bedrooms and doorways. To bless a home is to dedicate it to God — and, just as much, to dedicate yourself to living in it as a Christian.

This is not a verse chosen for the occasion; it is the service's own anchor. The troparion of the rite asks that as Christ's entry brought salvation to Zacchaeus, so now, with the entry of His priests, He would send His peace to this house and bless it. The prayer that follows addresses the Lord "who wast pleased to enter under the roof of Zacchaeus the publican, and didst become salvation to him and to all his house." The blessing of a home is the Church's way of asking Christ to come in again, deliberately and by invitation, and to remain.

Two different things called "house blessing"

It helps to know that there are really two customs here, and they are not the same.

The blessing of a dwelling

This is the full rite from the Book of Needs, described below. It is normally done once — when a family moves into a home, after building or a major renovation. What has been blessed is not blessed again as a matter of course. If a home was blessed by previous owners, or if a household simply wants to begin again with prayer after a hard season, ask the priest; there are circumstances in which it is appropriate to repeat it.

The Theophany visitation

At Theophany (January 6) the Great Blessing of Water is served, and the Church blesses the whole created order through the waters of the Jordan. In the days that follow, the clergy take the blessed water and the Cross and go through the homes of the parish, singing the troparion of the feast and sprinkling the houses and those who live in them. This is an annual visit, and it is shorter than the full rite.

The Theophany visitation is also the ancient custom of bringing the Church's worship into people's homes — which matters most for the sick, the elderly, and anyone who cannot easily come to the temple. If weather or the number of households makes January impractical, these visits are simply made at another time of year.

What happens during the service

The full rite takes about half an hour. The priest comes with the Cross, the Gospel, and a vessel of oil. Candles are lit, and he serves the Lesser Blessing of Water there in the house. He blesses the oil, and a cross is marked on each of the four walls; the walls are anointed with the blessed oil at those marks, and a candle is lit at each cross. Then the whole dwelling is sprinkled crosswise with holy water, room by room, with the prayers of the rite. The family follows him through the house, praying along.

It is an unhurried thing rather than a ceremony to be gotten through. Most families find it natural to sit down together afterwards — tea, a meal, a conversation with the priest. That is part of it, not an afterthought.

A home may be blessed on any day, at whatever hour suits your household and the priest. There is no required day of the week.

How to prepare

• Set out a small table, covered with a clean cloth, where the priest can put the Cross, the Gospel, and the holy things.
• Have an icon and candles ready. The priest brings the oil and the sprinkler and blesses the water at the house.
• Take down anything occult — charms and amulets, horseshoes over the door "for luck," astrological calendars, figures of pagan deities. A house cannot be dedicated to God and hedged with talismans at the same time.
• Turn off the television and music, and gather everyone who is home.
• Open the doors of the rooms you would like blessed, including closets and garages if you wish.
• There is no need to clean beyond the ordinary. The priest is not coming to inspect the house.

It is good when the whole household is present, since this is common prayer — but it is not a requirement, and it is no obstacle if someone in the family does not share the faith. The blessing is asked of God, not of the residents. What does matter is that those who are at home take part rather than carrying on with other business while it goes on around them.

Children often lead the priest from room to room carrying a lighted candle. It is worth letting them.

There is no fee for a house blessing. An offering to the parish is customary and entirely voluntary; no one is ever turned away for not making one.

Afterwards

Ask the priest for some of the holy water to keep. It is traditionally kept in the icon corner and taken with prayer in the morning, especially in times of illness or distress, and used to sprinkle the rooms during the year.

One thing is worth saying plainly, because it is the most common misunderstanding: the blessing does not work by itself, independently of the people who asked for it. It is not a mechanism, and it is not insurance. How much such a blessing bears fruit depends directly on how far the household's own life answers to the grace being asked for. Confession and Communion come first; the blessing of the walls we live inside comes after. What actually keeps a house a place of prayer is the prayer that goes on in it afterwards — morning and evening prayers, grace before meals, the icon lamp lit on feast days.