Certain home sellers of faith -- and maybe some desperate skeptics simply scrambling to relocate South before winter -- are enlisting a Realtor named St. Joseph to help them dig their way out of slow-moving mortgages.

How do I know? eBay told me so.

It's one of the prime locales for statue kits of St. Joe, patron of families, housing and moving, and an icon of hope in a housing market that's cooling down from too-hot-to-handle. Who knew?

There are glowing testimonies on the Web posted by people who claim they have buried the statue, then soon after pulled up stakes.

There's even a book about the phenomenon, `` St. Joseph, My Real Estate Agent,'' by a man named Stephen Bintz, who says his house sold in one week after languishing for seven months. St. Joseph home-selling goes like this: An ornament-sized statue is swaddled in cloth and buried, head down, feet heavenward, usually in front of a house that's been sitting, stale, and next to the For Sale sign.

A prayer for intervention is recited, and the home seller waits.

But not for long. Or so some say.

This may be all that's needed for divine help.

Is it? Do I know? Of course not.

Who knows where what some see as holiness and some call superstition may intersect?

In recent weeks, believers have had their spirits buoyed by the sight of water mysteriously issuing from a tree trunk and the unrelated discovery in a bodega of chocolate scraps that look an awful lot like the Virgin Mary.

Faith is a quality at the far end of the Bell curve from statistics. The Massachusetts Association of Realtors just announced an 11 percent drop in single family homes compared with last year, and condo sales are also slowing. That's black and white.

But our lives are lived mostly in the gray, that expansive area where our minds and hearts must be open. The St. Joseph's statue kit, running from $5 to $10 (a modest commission is an understatement) resides there.

The Rev. Brother Bob Russell, M.S., director of LaSalette Shrine, said he has frequently blessed St. Joseph statues bought by home sellers or Realtors. People of all denominations have been known to cleave to the practice, he said, and he's seen it work. The concept is ancient and was reflected in a 1949 film entitled `` Come to the Stable'' in which nuns played by Loretta Young and Celeste Holm bury a St. Jude medal in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, in their quest to build a hospital.

But that's then and this is now.

After the home buyer has secured financing and the deal is sealed, Russell advised, the statue should be dug up, washed and given a place of honor in the seller's new digs.

There are, of course, no guarantees on if or when your property will sell.

`` We don't put a time element on it,'' Russell said. `` That's up to the Lord.''

BETSY SHEA-TAYLOR is associate Opinion Page editor. She can be reached at 508-236-0439 or at prosewing@aol.com.