TO BURY HOLY OBJECTS IN THE GROUND OR NOT

Two people who are extremely close to me were a bit disturbed when they learned I approve of the practice of burying a statue of St Joseph on the grounds of a house that is for sale. Usually, someone buries a statue of St Joseph when they are trying to sell a house but they may have other reasons. My loved ones pointed out that a statue of St Joseph is such a beloved item of veneration, why submerge it in the slimy soil? Then they said you can't do something bad, potentially harm a holy object (and maybe something that is blessed) with the aim of getting a good result; the ends don't justify the means. 

I was further swayed against the practice when I heard Adam Blai's warning against burying a statue of St Joseph with a demand and a threat, ordering St Joseph to intercede for the house to sell, and demanding he do so and threatening that you'll never dig the statue out of the ground unless the house sells. Perish the thought of threatening the earthly father of Jesus and the saint who has wielded more authority than any other person who has ever lived (God the Father gave Joseph authority over His Son) and then trying to bend Joseph to your will by way of depositing a statue in the earth! 

So for a time, I went against burying holy objects in the ground. But now I've changed my mind again, and I'm not so black and white, rather I condemn the practice of manipulation that Blai teaches against, but I reason there can be serious reasons for holy objects to be buried in the ground. One of my readers, T. left a comment describing that she buried a treasured statue of St Joseph on the grounds of a house that she was forced to leave. I support this, because it ensured that St Joseph's presence remained on site but out of sight and the holy object was not prey to tampering or removal because its existence was not known. Also, a Catholic realtor friend of mine who is an exceptionally good person uses small plastic statues of St Joseph that he puts in the ground of houses that he is selling. After the house has sold, he digs it up again, washes it, and the statue is as good as new, which means no harm has come to a holy object. One reason he hides St Joseph is to avoid the occurrence of nasty comments being made against the Saint by the many people who visit a home they may wish to purchase. This realtor is hugely successful and even holds records above and beyond his competitors who do not use statues of St Joseph. 

In Your Blue Flame, Jennifer Fulwiler's 2018 memoir, she recounts a witty story about a man who was trying to sell his house and so he buried an enormous, life-sized statue of St Joseph, and when his house was sold, he dug up the statue at night with his neighbors watching and they thought he was digging up a dead body and they called the cops! 

There can, however, be much more grave reasons for burying a beloved statue or holy object. It may be the only way to safeguard it from harm or total destruction. I recorded an account of a very devout woman in Poland who had a large statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary in her garden. When Poland became Communist, a young man who was a militant Commie, came to her garden and shot the statue and the woman was so distraught that she never recovered from the trauma. Had she, like her neighbors, buried her statue in the garden, then it would have survived the worst attacks on pious objects. In time, those goodly Polish Catholics were able to dig up their precious statues, crosses, icons and medals because there was less danger of a Communist shooting them - bullets were scarcer because they had run out of metal. 

Down through the years, too many people have confided in me that they buried holy objects in times of dire persecution and in times of poverty.  Elderly Catholics in Ireland told me of times when they buried holy possessions that may have been prey to thieves. You may ask why did they not hide the objects in their homes, but they had bare cupboards and sparsely furnished homes, and there was no self-storage lockers available. A holy object would be conspicuous in a house that is otherwise bare. So, when times were particularly hard and hungry, they went out at night and under the cover of darkness put their valuable holy objects in the ground, lest they be stolen. I'm reminded, too, of the case in Prague, long before good security measures, when the Holy Infant was known to everyone to be dressed in vestments adorned with precious gems, and a thief murdered the sacristan to get his hands on the goods. 

This same tactic was used to preserve a priceless work of art and of exquisite beauty - the icon of Our Lady of Siluva was buried during the time that the Calvinists were destroying such icons. Calvin thought that the veneration of images and objects was heresy and so works of art as well as more ordinary objects of piety were destroyed and even reduced to dust. In Siluva, Lithuania, a plucky priest, Fr John hid the icon in a steel chest and 100 years later it was removed from the ground and restored to its rightful place in the church for all to admire and venerate. 

Even amid serious circumstances, persecution and poverty, there can be a nagging doubt about sequestering the sacred under the shelter of soil. And a lot of people in times of great need, do not have access to a steel box as did Fr John in Siluva. I'm led, however, to think that we will, ourselves be buried in the earth, and Saints whose bodies are first-class relics are also buried in the earth. I'm inspired to think that the bodies of the holiest of the holy are totally free from the ravages of time that usually is visited upon dead bodies, and they remain incorrupt. When they are taken out of the ground, after they have been dead for some time, they look as though they are sleeping. The first Saint who was discovered to be incorrupt was St Cecilia, and yet her husband had decayed like the majority of mortals. There is extraordinary grace given to protect these people from putridity. Perhaps a similar grace may be on offer if there is dire need for us to bury our holy objects, He Who has control over the elements may deign to give sacred items special protection if and when they are stashed under the shield of soil. 

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Adam Blai's book (which informed my comments about incorruptible Catholic saints) The Catholic Guide to Miracles is available here. 

The classic painting of St Joseph was executed by Jusepe de Rivera.