Catholic Housewarming Gifts
For a family moving into a new house: the Sacred Heart to enthrone in it, the Holy Family at home in Nazareth, and the Last Supper for the dining room, as in a thousand Catholic homes before it.
Any time of year — a house blessing is a good occasion to give one. Each print is made to order: allow about two and a half weeks for delivery.
The Sacred Heart
Pompeo Batoni
The image at the heart of the enthronement of the Sacred Heart, the devotion in which a family consecrates its home to Christ.
From $31.52
Sacred Heart of Jesus
Charles Bosseron
A second Sacred Heart, softer and warmer — for a family that wants the devotion in a gentler key.
From $31.52
The Last Supper
Leonardo da Vinci
The picture over countless Catholic dining tables, for the room where a family eats together.
From $53.18
Christ in the House of His Parents
John Everett Millais
The carpenter’s shop at Nazareth, with the boy Jesus cut on the hand — so ordinary a home that it shocked Victorian London.
From $44.13
Joseph the Carpenter
Georges de La Tour
The boy Jesus holding a candle while his father works — Nazareth by night, a home lit by one small light.
From $32.98
The Holy Family with a Bird
Bartolomé Esteban Murillo
Murillo’s Holy Family in their kitchen, with a small white dog at their feet — family life as holy as it is ordinary.
From $32.98
Christ in the House of Martha and Mary
Johannes Vermeer
One of Vermeer’s earliest and largest pictures: Christ as a guest in a friend’s home — a painting about hospitality.
From $44.47
Friend of the Humble (Supper at Emmaus)
Léon Augustin Lhermitte
Christ at the table of a poor French family — the blessing of any house that makes room for a guest.
From $32.98
The Angelus
Jean-François Millet
Two farm workers stop at the sound of the church bell to pray the Angelus — the rhythm of prayer in daily life.
From $31.52
Saint Joseph
Catholic Art Studio
Saint Joseph, patron of families and, by long custom, of homes and those who buy and sell them.
From $33.26
Blessing a new home
Catholics mark a new home in several ways: a house blessing by a priest, a crucifix over the door, chalk on the lintel at Epiphany. The enthronement of the Sacred Heart goes further — the family places an image of the Sacred Heart in a place of honour and consecrates the household to Christ, often with a priest present.
The other traditional picture for a Catholic home is the Last Supper, which has hung in dining rooms for generations as a reminder of whose table every meal is set at. Either makes a housewarming gift that becomes part of the house.
Questions
What is the enthronement of the Sacred Heart?
A Catholic devotion in which a family places an image of the Sacred Heart of Jesus in a place of honour in the home and consecrates the household to him, usually with a short prayer service and often a priest.
What is a good Catholic housewarming gift?
A crucifix, holy water, or a sacred picture for the home — the Sacred Heart, the Holy Family or the Last Supper are the traditional choices.
Why do Catholics hang the Last Supper in the dining room?
It is a long custom: a reminder at every family meal of the meal at which Christ gave the Eucharist.