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Summary
- Short prayers cover each step of renting: applying honestly, favor with the landlord, a weak credit history, waiting for an answer, a rejection and an approval.
- Further prayers cover starting the search, choosing between two places, the deposit and rent, buying a home, renting out a flat, moving day and the fear of eviction.
- In the US, 211 connects callers to local help with housing and rent; in England, Shelter’s free housing helpline is 0808 800 4444.
- Jesus told his disciples to say on entering a house, “Peace be to this house” (Luke 10:5); the Roman Ritual’s blessing of houses opens with the same words in Latin.
- The 1888 Manual of Prayers gives the house prayer “Hear us, O Holy Lord … to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all those that dwell in this house.”
- Russian Orthodox Christians ask Saint Spyridon of Tremithus to pray for help with housing, a popular custom rather than church teaching.
Bibliography (Click to show)
- Scripture quotations are from the King James Version (1611), text of Project Gutenberg eBook no. 10 (Genesis 39:21; Joshua 24:15; Nehemiah 2:8; Psalm 121:8; Proverbs 11:3; 16:9; Matthew 8:20; Luke 10:5; 2 Corinthians 4:8; Philippians 4:6, 19; James 1:5). https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/10
- A Manual of Prayers for the Use of the Catholic Laity, prepared and published by order of the Third Plenary Council of Baltimore. New York: Catholic Publication Society, 1888. The Holy Viaticum, p. 477. https://archive.org/details/AManualOfPrayers1888
- Rituale Romanum, typical Vatican edition approved by Pius XI, 1925. Title VIII, “Benedictio domorum extra Tempus Paschale” (Laudate Dominum reprint, pp. 190–191). https://www.liturgia.it/content/ritrom.pdf
- Vailhé, Siméon. “Tremithus.” The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 15. New York: Robert Appleton Company, 1912. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/15030b.htm
- “В чем помогает святитель Спиридон” (How Saint Spyridon helps). Foma. https://foma.ru/v-chem-pomogaet-svyatitel-spiridon.html
- Orthodox Church in America. “Saint Spyridon the Wonderworker, Bishop of Tremithus.” https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2022/12/12/103526-saint-spyridon-the-wonderworker-bishop-of-tremithus
- United Way. 211. https://www.211.org/
- Shelter. “Emergency housing helpline.” https://england.shelter.org.uk/get_help/helpline
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