Burying St. Joseph

From the title, this could be a post about the lack of attention St. Joseph gets in the Catholic faith, but, no, it's about the tradition of burying a St. Joseph statue in your yard to help sell your house. There are many websites out there about this practice - here is an example. Traditions like this have always seemed a bit like mixing religion and magic and I have always shied away from them. Others ones that bother me are ones that say if you say a certain prayer X times in Y days, something "good" will happen. For the St. Joseph burying tradition, I have heard it called idolatry (don't be shy Tom McG.), to a marketing ploy by Realtors, to superstition, to faith, to luck or coincidence.

What brought all this up is my friends Boom and Miss Nancy. Their house has been on the market for several months with no serious bids. They had lowered the price twice and as of the beginning of July hadn't had a nibble in two weeks. They also had a new house which they needed to close on in August. Our area of NJ is a real buyer's market right now with a glut of homes up for sale. St. Joe went in the ground on July 5th and at an Open House on July 7th, six couples saw the house and one made a cash offer which will expedite the closing.

Coincidence? An up tick in the housing market? Miss Nancy being out of the country? or St. Joe in the ground. Knowing Boom and Nancy, there was probably some prayers to St. Joe for intercession along with the burying of the statue. Maybe that's where the truth lies. Or maybe burying the statue is an act of faith, that God rewards. Not becuase it's magic, but because you put your faith in Him.