This year the Lenten season is upon us very early. The time just before Lent is a perfect time to bless or re-bless your home as to protect you and help prepare you for the Lenten season ending with the joyous celebration of Easter. It may be a bit old fashioned but in these hectic and uncertain times it makes sense to me to protect and bless our homes and families. Home blessing simply is a sacred physical act of dedication; a dedication of both the family members and their household to the Lord. Many Christians have written to us lately informing us that they finally created a prayer room in their homes and now they want to know what’s next, in regards to the blessing of their home. We always answer, to first have the home blessed by their pastor or priest and then to develop a daily or nightly blessing prayer to be recited by all the members of the family.
To understand the why and how come of having a blessing upon the entrance to a home we must go back to the Biblical days when the children of Israel were slaves to the Egyptians. Most everyone remembers all the various feats of power our God did in an attempt to convince the Egyptians to let the Children of Israel go free. Nothing was effective until God told the children of Israel to kill an unblemished lamb, eat it all in one sitting and then to paint the door posts with the blood of the lamb. Why, because God was going to send His holy angel of death to kill every first-born of man and beast in that area. The angel of death was instructed to 'pass-over' the homes with the blood of the lamb on the door posts. So, there you have the quick story of how ‘Pass-over’ came to be and why the Jews still celebrate it to today. You can also see the connection and symbolism of the unblemished lamb being Jesus, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world by taking our sins onto Himself, and then by the shedding of His blood as payment for those sins. Because of this, we Christians have been set free from death and condemnation because Jesus shed His blood on the cross as a payment for our sin.
To grant our homes and our families the blessings and protection from harm and evil, we bless our homes by putting some physical symbol on each door of our homes. In traditional Catholic and Anglicans homes you will find a holy water font by the front door. Everyone who enters their home may put a small amount of holy water on their fingers and bless themselves with the sign of the cross as they remind themselves of their Baptism. The holy water font serves as a proclamation to all visitors that the people within the home have been bought (redeemed) by Jesus and belong to Him. No evil wants to be anywhere that Jesus’ is, and has no power over Him or His people.
The persons of the home however, must take this to one higher rank to achieve the full benefit of a Christian house blessing. They can't expect to have a blessed, protected and serene home without making the home a place that Jesus is invited to enter at any time. Many families will pray "Come Lord Jesus be our guest and make this home and our hearts Your dwelling place now and even forevermore, each night as they lock up and retire. One can't ask Jesus to give them ‘just five minutes to tidy up a bit’ like some of us do with our pastor/priest! One can't bring out all the religious articles when the pastor/priest comes a calling and put them away once he leaves. This serves doubly well for Jesus.
To truly be a Christian is to invite Jesus to come and dwell with you in your home and in your heart. Dark or evil things such as Pornography, other dirty or nasty books and ‘items’ must go. Certain television programs shouldn't be allowed to play in your home. This also goes for the certain type of music. Music with dark and/or evil lyrics and phrases within it should also be banned from your home and from your lives. This is what it means to have a truly Christian home. A Christian home is open and not hiding any secrets and is always ready for Christ to enter at any moment without any embarrassment or to be ‘caught doing what you shouldn’t’. Holy beings do not enter into evil or evil environments. When you ask protection for your home and family you are asking for Jesus to send His holy angels to keep you safe and from all harm, danger and evil. You can't have allowed evil in the ‘back door’ so to speak, and certainly not to have remained within your home. Otherwise you would be defeating the whole blessing intention. One can not do ‘things’ only half way and in turn expect full benefits.
Now for those of you who are not traditional Catholic or Anglican, or who don't want to put a holy water font up, you can still invoke the protecting power of God and His heavenly hosts by simply hanging or mounting a cross on the front and back doors of your home. As a family fun activity you could make hanging crosses for all the doors of your house from scraps found around the house. The kids would really enjoy it, but more importantly they would get the real or true meaning for doing so. It isn’t the physical piece of wood that has any power. It is the physical action of placing a reminder of the power of our un-seen God. Still one needs to understand that if you are asking to be free from all evil and harm, you defeat the whole purpose by allowing certain unholy or items of darkness within your home.
I truly hope you don't see what I am saying as a bunch of have’s and have not’s, do's and don'ts. It isn't ‘the rule’ to do such and such to be a Christian or to have a Christian home. All I am saying is if you truly want your home and family to be free from danger harm and any evil, don't defeat yourself by allowing a bunch of dark/evil things inside your home environment! It’s kind of like you wouldn’t build a large castle to protect you from your enemies, and then turn around and have a large unlocked backdoor for them to easily enter. Or worst yet you wouldn’t have a couple of rooms within your castle for your enemy to sleep in. The whole purpose of building a castle and keeping your family safe from evil is to not allow it inside in the very first place.
If you move into a new home or have a home that hasn't been blessed before, call your pastor or priest and ask them to come and bless your home. Most often they will be more than willing. Then after this has been done either mount a holy water font or hanging crosses on both front and back doors of your home. Every night when you retire have your family say a simple prayer of protection and bless yourselves with the sign of the cross and then retire. Recently a regular customer of ours wrote the following. “In my family we found an easy way to begin a nightly blessing. After family devotions we as a family go to the front and back doors and say our protection prayer together, cross ourselves, lock up and then put the kids to bed. Our children woke up a lot less and had a lot less night terrors while growing up. Some of our friends think that I was exaggerating a bit, but this is actually how it worked for our family. Our children felt more secure and protected by God and His heavenly hosts/the angels”. One of the finest examples I have heard of!
Today, all of our children are in need of as much security as we can provide for them. Never, before in rememberable history has there been a generation that is so very insecure and frightened in their own home environment. The TV and radio air waves are full of this guy and that guy raping, torturing and killing this little child. Terrorists blew this family up while they were at the market. Or this person was trying to grab this child and take them away from their families. International sex-trafficking and other frightening unmentionables, all of this has contributed to the very sad fact that our children are so very frightened, insecure feeling and overanxious most of the time today. They walk around waiting for something ‘bad’ to happen at any moment. Jesus told us to cast our fear and anxieties on him and He would take care of and protect us. Peacefulness, serenity of home and family is truly worth the taking of this action in the first place. Bless your homes and yourselves then trust that Jesus will care and protect you at all times in your comings and in your goings, awake and in sleep regardless of what is going on in the world around you.
Lastly, please understand that physical actions are needed whenever God is making a point or trying to prove a point. Why do I bring this up? Because I know just how many people out there will tell you that you don't need to do this or that action because God knows you and will protect and keep you from harm without any of the actions. Yes, in one way that is very true. However, what if a Jewish family back when God instructed the first Passover, would have said, “Oh heck God knows us and so we don’t have to mess up the nice wood around our doors with lambs blood”. What would have happened? Well most Christians would agree that they too would have lost their first-born, human and beasts. God told them to take an action and to do it without exception for a simple reason. When the families did as God told them they and their first-born(s) were spared. Therefore understand that physical actions not only make statements of our un-seen faith to others, they are also physical reminders to us and our children of Jesus’ care and protection.
So don't allow anyone to do any double talk and talk you out of actively proclaiming your faith and robbing you of the vivid physical presences and reminder of our faith in the non-physical Triune God. Simply putting a cross on your doors will proclaim your family’s faith as it gives your family a physical reminder of the promises of Jesus providing you protection from harm, danger and all evil. “Be still and know that He is God and that He cares for you and yours because you belong to Him”. We are His because He bought and paid for us with the shedding of His blood. Give this historically rich and soothing message as well as the physical reminder to your children so that they can feel completely in Jesus’ loving embrace and care and therefore completely safe and sound in their homes.
I have included a couple of blessing prayers just to give you ideas of what you can say in yours. The blessing prayer is personal to your family and should be powerful but easy for the little ones to remember.
Some House Blessing Prayers
Come Lord Jesus be our guest and make this home and our hearts Your dwelling place now and forevermore.
O God the Eternal Father, protect our going out and our coming in; Let us share the hospitality of this home with all who visit us, that those who enter here may know Your love and peace and may always see this displayed by each member of this family.
We dedicate this house to you Lord Jesus, may it be a place of joy, laughter and freedom. A place of renewal and refreshment for those who are weary. A place of hope for those who have become disillusioned. A place of healing and comfort for those broken and hurt. A place of forgiveness for those who seek a new way of life. A place of encouragement and fulfillment for those who hunger and thirst for peace and justice. A place of vision and inspiration for all those who seek a new and better way to live together in harmony.
Protect us, Lord Jesus, as we are awake; watch over us as we sleep, that awake we may keep watch for Your return, and asleep, we may rest in Your loving embrace and peace. O Holy Spirit grant us the grace to display the peace of Christ as He rules in our hearts. May the word of Christ in all its richness dwell in us, so that whatever we do in word or deed, in work or play, we will do it in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. O Holy Ghost remind us that all things belong to God including this home and its possessions. We pray that we be granted the graces to be good stewards of God's richness and blessings to all we come into contact with. Just as You O Lord instructed Your holy angel to pass over the homes with the blood of the lamb, so too will You instruct Your heavenly host to keep all members of this home who have been redeemed by Christ the Crucified, protected and kept from any form of harm, danger and evil. Angels we thank you for all that you do for us including the very things we will never know that we were kept safe from. Praise be to you the Triune God, Father, Son and Holy Ghost.