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.

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