Another way to increase the goodness in your home is to do a house blessing. Many cultures around the world have concepts of house blessings. Within Christianity, house blessings occur most often in the Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican churches.

Spiritual Transformation

The basic idea of a house blessing is that space can be transformed through prayer. In most cases, blessed water from the church will be sprinkled through the home by a priest while members of the family and close friends follow the priest and sing. A house blessing can create an opportunity to remember every gift that has been given to those who dwell in the home, and also to remember that the family is much larger than the small group of people who dwell there.

Families stretch back generations and incorporate both the living and the dead. This is why prayers are traditionally said for those on both sides of the grave. Families can also extend beyond the confines of biology to embrace friends and the wider community. A house blessing can help anchor people in this larger reality.

Preparing for a House Blessing

Before a house blessing, families clean their homes to a shine and prepare a meal, snacks, or dessert for those who will come. The act of preparing the home can be a joyful time, full of anticipation, hope, and gratitude. During the house blessing, prayers may also be said over each area of the home, as a way of consecrating specific rooms to specific purposes. In more elaborate house blessings, crosses will also be drawn with olive oil on the four main walls of the home. Within the Eastern Orthodox Church, an elaborate house blessing service is often performed when a family moves into a home, and then smaller house blessings will be performed each January — after the feast of Theophany, when water is blessed and Christ's baptism is remembered.

The smaller annual services are a way of continually attending to the spiritual atmosphere of the home, praying for those who dwell there, and infusing the physical space with a sense of spiritual purpose. This might be considered a form of “spiritual housekeeping.” House blessings are also a way for communities to celebrate all the gifts that have been given and the way that all these gifts come together in the home.