House Blessing

[robbie]

All I can say is I'm amazed I managed to hold my tongue...

 

My cousin apparently took it upon herself to get my nan's house blessed by a priest. My nan's been having hallucinations because she has Parkinsons, because of the medication she's on and because of her poor eyesight and cateracts. When she tells me she sees things I explain to her that it's because of the medication and her eyesight, and she seems to get that.

 

I sat and drank my coffee while my cousin talked to the priest about the hallucinations as though they were conscious beings attacking nan...who has never actually been scared of them or worried they might hurt her. But then, according to my cousin (Sam, we'll say), that's because nan's faith is so strong. I had to go into the kitchen and tell myself to think about humanism when the priest said, "Science would say it's just phenomena...but somethings aren't just phenomena."

 

I sat on the back step and had a cigarette...apparently he waited for me for about 10 minutes. But in the end he did the blessing and went away, and I didn't have to be part of it.

 

Frankly I don't see the need for people coming into the house and entertaining a frail old woman with thoughts of demons and other such bullshit. How I managed not to say, "No, she doesn't need Our Lady. Our Lady's been dead for 2000 fucking years...she's not much good to us anymore," I'll never know. Had I been there during the actual blessing I may have laughed out loud.

 

As if that wasn't enough, I had to put £20 in an envelope to give to this priest. Though I wanted to be physically ill at the thought of an 87 year old woman on a state pension chucking around money for such pointless causes, it's hardly for me to say what she can and can't spend her money on.

 

Fortunately the family aren't that religious, and found it quite amusing when I told them I sat outside because, "having a heathen like me in the house might mean God doesn't come." When it was suggested he might be scared of me, I said: "He'd better be. I'm on to him."

[pandora]

Wow! I definitely wouldn't have called the priest. I'm not that nice.

[Lycorth]

House blessings. Years of them did nothing to ward away depression and suicidal mania, or discontent with life in general, that I endured growing up. No amount of house blessings made the ends any easier to meet, or increased my family's standard of living, or transformed the problems we always seemed to have plenty of into advantages.

 

Whatever

[Rhia]

Ugh... as a former pentecostal, I'm quite familiar with house blessings - and by that I mean wasting $30 as my best bottle of olive oil was wasted by making crosses with it on anything that was stationary, including at one point my cat (for jumping on my bible with her claws - I didn't find oout until later that one of her catnip mice had ripped open and some of it had fallen between the pages).

 

It's sad what people will do to make themselves feel better in their surroundings, especially when it just doesn't work.

[Grandpa Harley]

"It's sad what people will do to make themselves feel better in their surroundings, especially when it just doesn't work."

 

If it makes you feel better then it's worked... Doesn't make it real on an objective level, but...

[Kirangel]

The sad part is that it wasn't even used to make the old woman feel better, she had no concerns over it. I can see doing it if she herself was worried about demons, or unnatural entities and if that would have helped her feel better. As long as it doesn't make the situation worse, then no harm done.

[R. S. Martin]

I've never heard of house blessings. For a short period I went to a charismatic Mennonite church. The family that had really reached out to me was building a new barn or machine shed or whatever for their farm. One evening they had a big party to get it blessed. The pastor and all the church people were invited over and we had a big pot-luck supper. I figured, "Okay, blessing a building is just something some people do." They are successful in their farming business but so are a lot of people who never have formal blessings on buildings.

[HuaiDan]

No thanks! Thousand island for me!

[robbie]

The sad part is that it wasn't even used to make the old woman feel better, she had no concerns over it. I can see doing it if she herself was worried about demons, or unnatural entities and if that would have helped her feel better. As long as it doesn't make the situation worse, then no harm done.

 

Yeah, that's what I felt. I wouldn't have approved or taken part anyway, but at least if she had chosen it I could have seen the point. To have someone basically tell her that she was scared when she wasn't, that she should be when she shouldn't and that they can help when they can't was the real offense. My cousin went on, for example, about how her prayer got rid of the hallucinations for at least a day. From what my nan could get in edgeways I gathered she actually happened not to see them for ten minutes or so. But, as always with superstitious nonsense (aka religion) the truth is not a prime concern.

 

They are successful in their farming business but so are a lot of people who never have formal blessings on buildings.

 

Exactly. When faith and success coincide, it's a blessing. Where there's faith and failure it's a test. Where there's success and no faith it's the earthly reward to tempt the faithful away. Where there are neither, it's punishment. No matter what we say, they've got an answer for everything.