Having trouble selling your house? Don’t give up. Maybe Saint Joseph can help.

This is the St. Joseph Home Sales Kit. Pictured: the box, the statue, the instructions and the card with the special prayer you are supposed to say.

Am I the only person who’s never heard of this? As a cradle Catholic who attended Catholic schools for 12 years, how did this escape me?

It seems that St. Joseph, the husband of Mary and the earthly father of Jesus, is the patron saint of real estate transactions — in particular, home sales. You can actually go online or to The Paraclete, the Catholic gift shop at Sacred Heart Cathedral, and purchase a kit. The kit costs $6.95 and contains a little plaster-of-Paris statue of Saint Joseph, a holy card with a special prayer on it, and instructions. You are supposed to dig a hole in your front yard and bury Saint Joseph upside down with his feet pointed to heaven and his face towards the house. You recite the prayer. And the house will sell.

One important element: Don’t forget where you buried him because after the house sells, you are supposed to dig him up and place him in a spot of honor in your new home.

I kid you not. The new publisher of the News Sentinel, Patrick Birmingham, and his wife, Missy, used the St. Joseph method when they sold their home in Texas. The vice president of Rivr Media, Rob Lundgren, and his wife, Beth, used it when they sold their home in Knoxville and moved to Farragut. And Tom Catani, vice president of U.S. Cellular, and his wife, Deanene, marketing director of the News Sentinel, did it when they got married and each sold their home so they could buy one together. Each couple swears by the effectiveness of the practice. “We are not superstitious,” Tom Catani explained to me. “But any help we could get, we took advantage of. And besides, we are proud of our European traditions.”

Beth Lundgren, in particular, can explain to you the importance of digging Saint Joseph up when you make the move. She forgot to do it and had to sneak back to her old house under cover of darkness and retrieve the statue! But she got him. And today he is displayed on a high shelf near the front door of their new home.

This is not news to area Realtors.

“I have had sellers who have done that,” says Suzy Trotta, of Coldwell Banker Wallace & Wallace Realtors. “I usually find out about it after the sale. But I don’t ask. If it sells the house, I don’t care!” Trotta herself keeps one of the little statues on her desk as a good luck charm.

Jon Brock, with Realty Executives, agrees. “I’m Presbyterian, but I’ve put a few of them in the ground,” he said without hesitation. “I try it for all my Catholic listings. I’ll use this. I’ll use voodoo. I’ll use anything that works!”

Sharon Laing, of Keller Williams Realty, has had a lot of experience with the practice. “I’ve always heard of it,” she says. “Many, many years ago, I had a listing that just would not sell. It was a $1 million-plus home that belonged to a prominent person whose name I won’t mention. It had been on the market for more than a year. Someone told me about this and I went out and buried Saint Joseph in the yard. Within a week, the house sold!” She said now that whenever a house will not sell, she or a colleague will say, “Let’s go get one!”

Tom Pettitt, of Realty Executives, is a little more skeptical. “It has not been my experience that it works,” he said. “If I thought it did, I’d own stock in the company that makes them. Or maybe my friends and clients are just reprobates!”

I bought one of the kits so I could have a photograph for this blog post. But I’m keeping it. When we decide to sell our house in Sequoyah Hills and move downtown for good, you’d better believe Saint Joseph is going head first in the front yard.

My St. Joseph was made in China!

Photo credit: Thanks to Charley Sexton of Moxley Carmichael for taking these photos.