To ask Our Vicar to

[LittleSilver]

bless our house?

Our house is VERY old (bits date from the eleventh century) It's lovely, usually has a great feel. I have never felt completely "alone" there, iyswim, but it has never bothered me. It is very remote but have happily stayed there by myself and the children when DH has been away.

Anyway, last night I woke up because DD2 (2) was crying. I got into bed with her, hoping she would go back to sleep, but she was very unsettled. Then I heard something (no idea what, it sounded metal and there is nothing there that is metal) fall over in a corner of the room, and I decided to take her into my bed, where DD1 had already gone. (Normally they both very good at sleeping in their own beds).

Anyway, we all go back to sleep, and I wake up again. I can hear a child crying. DDs 1 and 2 are in bed with me, DD3 is 10 months old and right next door, plus it's not a baby crying. It sounds very far away. I sat up in bed and turned the light on, I was so freaked out, and I could STILL hear it. I tried to wake up DH, but then it stopped. I'm totally freaked by this point and leave the light on. DD2 then wakes up and asks for a drink, I ask DH to pass me the beaker on his side of the bed. He's half asleep and says "Yes, and shall I get a drink for the old man that has just walked in through the door as well?" I am so freaked out that I slept with the duvet WELL over my hear.

I have never been spooked in my house before. I HAVE felt a prescence of some kind, but have never been remotely bothered by it.

Please can someone tell me I am being a twit? Mu husband said I am being very silly and it was just some lambs outside. I suppose it could have been.

Why not go the whole hog and ask him if he'll do an exorcism?

my grandma did on her old house, she said it worked and never looked back!

personally, have no belief in anything supernatural but would love to attend an exorcism, preferably with a handsome charismatic vicar.

Why not ask him? In some branches of Christianity (my DP's, for example, which is Eastern Orthodox), it is considered usual to bless the house when you first move into it.

I am pretty sceptical about paranormal stuff, but if you feel you want a blessing the person to talk to is your vicar, and I can't see it doing any harm.

Educational for the kids too. You could read them 'The Ghost of Thomas kempe' to get them in the mood!

Ah, another CS fan! waves

I don't recon it matters what it was that you heard, the fact is that you've been spooked, and once you've thought 'I'm spooked' it's hard to switch it off.

I was brought up in a house that was built in the 16thC, and although I didn't have any creepy feelings about it generally, I did have a couple of experiences that weren't quite right, so I know what you mean. But once it's in your head, you're going to be listening out and perhaps interpreting things along the lines of it being something spooky IYSWIM?

I think the question you have to ask yourself about asking a Vicar to bless the house is whether it would make you feel better. If the answer is yes, then why wouldn't you do it? I'm sure the local Vicar would be only too happy to talk to you about it.

You're obviously worried about it, whether it was what you think it was is irrelevant, it's worrying you and your DH needs a good telling off and prodded into being more reassuring and less dismissive

(Your house sounds fantastic BTW)

We used to have 'masses' at our house, when the Catholic neighbours came round and sat on all of our chairs and had communion and everything.

What do Vicars do anyway, apart from on Sundays?

YANBU! one of my close relatives is C of E clergy and he does this (not weekly I hasten to add)

There may well be some spirits lurking, send them away with peace and a blessing

YANBU. Blessing is good, and I'm sure the vicar would love to be asked!

Someone ought to tell Giles Coren that the CofE does have exorcists, though as he points out in here it does seem incongruous:

It?s just all so very Roman Catholic. Does anyone else have a chief exorcist? Does the Church of England have one? Does it have any? I very much doubt it. If it does then it?ll be one or two beardy chancers, in it for the beer and lonely-hearts opportunities. But it?s hard to imagine what a C of E exorcist would do. Sit down with a fiery demon and offer it tea? And then presumably say that it takes all sorts and had it ever thought of becoming a priest?

(sorry, probably inappropriate in this context but it was just such a funny mental image)

"What do Vicars do anyway, apart from on Sundays?"

where would ou like me to start??????

Do you attend mass?

if so I dont think it would be a problem, but I know my priest would be annoyed if you asked for his services if you didn't attend his service.

I would have pee-ed myself.

Our old house was haunted and it was quite normal for us (I am not so brave now though!). We had the same types of things - odd noises in the attic/on the roof, strange men loitering in a doorway, heavy laboured breathing in one room, (and over my cot) dark shadows, music coming from empty rooms, and nuns (it had been a convent). Oh and the little girl who used to speak to my sister. We never had the place 'cleaned' but we went on the assumption that if they wanted to harm us they would have done ages ago. It was usually 'busy' when there was uproar in the family.

I would have it 'cleaned' of I were you - it sounds scary!

Toccata, are you a Vicar, or married to one?

Really would like you to start, but in an interested way, not a scornful one.

If you are a vicar, are you on the bible threads?

I have had some odd experiences with an old Catholic Priest; he gave sermons that directly referred to specific members of the congregation. It's actually the Catholic priests that I am more interested in than C of E, which is a more pragmatic thing.

If you are a C of E vicar, could I mention that the Catholics are getting the raw end of the deal. You welcome our Catholic homosexuals and we get your bigots. You get the nice thoughtful Christians and we get Ann Widdicombe.

The pope is trying to poach the worst of the C of E and as a result, liberal Catholics are thinking of going your way!

And female priests, that is a good idea. The Catholic bench isn't so comfortable.

it is absolutely what your vicar is there for regardless of whether you are a regular church attender or not and regardless of what this is...if it will reassure you then do it!

no I'm not a Vicar - I'm an organist - but do get on very well with my vicar - and know that trying to arrange a meeting to discuss anything church (or not!) related with her during teh week can be rather difficult at times with all the other stuff she has to do.

Yanbu...although I have never done it...

When we move into a new house I spinkle holy water in each room...and there's always a crucifix over our bed...

Do it, LittleSilver, I'm on the fence with this, but you never know. My mum on the other hand has never lived in a house without a full on Catholic welcoming procession, damn, she'd do it in Latin if she could understand a word of it.

Tripoli don't get me started on the Widdecombe.
I sometimes accompany my ma to high days and holidays and pretend that I still love Jesus so I won't die in a fiery hell etc. I once took her to Westminster Cathedral for mass and imagine my surprise when AW gave the lay preacher's sermon. Her droning on, telling other people what to do took on a new level with the religious content. My mum, of course, thought she was lovely. Even though mum was an immigrant single mother for years and AW would have chucked her out the country sharpish.

One of my favourite people ever growing up was a visiting Irish priest, as camp as a row of tents, with a fondness for whisky and singing Barbra Streisand songs. He's definitely going to heaven as far as I'm concerned.

my relative did a service and sprinkled some holy waster!

Tripoli - very funny, if perhaps sadly true.

LittleSilver, I just attended a lecture on parapsychology at the weekend, given by a lovely University lecturer and researcher into parapsychology. He talked amongst other things about the tricks that your brain can play on you that can cause people to hear noises, smell smells, and see things that aren't there. Apparently, it's actually quite easy to get people in a lab situation to see images and hear voices / music - basically when you're just waking up, just dropping off, or you're doing a mundane activity like the washing up, your brain seems to be able to generate its own sensations. In the lab, they quite often have people saying 'you were playing the radio just then, weren't you?' when they've just been playing white noise. (I actually quite often 'hear voices' when I'm dropping off to sleep, just echoes of things I've heard during the day.)

So I think that there's nothing in your story that's inconsistent with a normal evening - something fell over, you took your daughter into bed, your brain was alert to children crying and so started generating its own 'crying' noises as you were falling asleep and waking up (or it's lambs outside, which doesn't seem strange at this time of year), your DH half-woke up and was talking nonsense (I mean, how often do I half-wake up and say something meaningless to my DH when he gets into bed after a late shift). To be honest, I do think you're putting 2 and 2 together and making 74.

Watford has a town centre chaplaincy and their senior chaplain regularly goes out to people's house's and prays over them.

Where are you based?

Sorry Porca but pmsl at image of holy waster- I could think of a few people if you need suggestions

OP ask, if it makes you feel better just do it. No reason not to.

And as for what do vicars do... well ours is chief of governors at school, spends a lot fo time in hospital as a counsellor, offers form filling services to immigrants that don't speak English or Welsh, spends time with lonely parishioners.... rather a lot really.

Your vicar will definitely be able to advise - and every C of E diocese has a person or small group of people who have special training in this kind of thing. Sometimes your own vicar will be happy to say suitable prayers/blessings, sometimes he'll prefer to have the diocesan person come to do it - it depends really on the individual.

Though as others have said, it probably isn't anything you need to worry about, if you feel worried and would be reassured by a clergy person coming and "doing something" then go for it.

Not at all unreasonable to ask your vicar what he thinks about it.
In the meantime, just remember that you and your children are precious to God and that you are under His protection at all times of the day or night.

Remember the prayer:-

Dear Lord, protect us from ghasties and ghoulies, long leggity beasties and things that go BUMP in the night.

Amen.

Why don't you offer any food that falls off your table to the ghosts, and lead them out of the house Hansel and Gretel style until they are at a crossroads?

Then you bury the food and little figureens of them together and tell them that's where they 'live' now.

They used to do this in ancient greece and rome I'm told! Works a charm, as they say.

Don't believe in all that stuff but still would have peed myself (have been sleeping with the light on since I watched paranormal activity). Can't hurt to give it a try!