“Mom, can we have a chapel in our house?”
My son loved playing Mass as a toddler, and he was always setting up little altars in different corners of the house. Finally, it dawned on me (with some encouragement and practical tips from a book called The Little Oratory—a great resource for every family to read!) that my son was onto something. We should have a place to pray as a family in our home! There’s a reason it is easier to pray in a church, the beauty of the building and the decorations helps orient your heart to God. Why couldn’t we have a tiny taste of that in our house—the place where we spend the majority of our time?
Putting together a prayer corner was a fun project that my husband, my kids and I all worked on. Here’s how we did it.
Scout Out the Perfect Spot
I thought we should put our prayer space somewhere central, not just tucked away, to remind us that we can pray always, even amid the daily tasks and chores. We had to try a few different places before we found the best place in our home.
First, we tried a place in the kitchen because we spend lots of time there cooking and chatting. But, it wasn’t quite the right space for us as we wanted a place where my husband and I could sit and have our own time for quiet prayer.
We then looked at places in our living room. There was some wall space that the people before us had used for a television. We had put a bookshelf there when we moved in, but it had never quite felt right. So, we decided to convert that space into a our prayer corner.
I can’t recommend The Little Oratory enough if you need more ideas for how to locate the perfect place for your family’s prayer corner!
Pick out a Shelf or Small Table
Now that you have a space, it’s time to fill it!
This might necessitate a trip to your local thrift store to find the perfect (and affordable!) foundation for your corner. You could use a bookshelf, a shelf or two, or a small table to serve as an altar. We chose a small table with storage underneath.
One thing that I found important was to have a table low enough that our kids could see the top of, but high enough to discourage grabbing things off of it. This is important if you hope to add breakable statues or artwork!
Find Sacred Art to Display
On our table, we usually have one religious image on display that we rotate depending on the season or feast days. During this month, we have had a picture of St. Joseph on display in honor of his feast day. We will swap that picture with one of the Resurrection at Easter time, and so forth.
We also have these beautiful pictures that we display when we pray the Rosary, or just when we want a beautiful image that relates to the season (the Nativity around Christmas time, or the Assumption in August). If your family prays the Stations of the Cross during Lent, these posters would be another great addition. Or, if you want to pray while looking at the real faces of Jesus and Mary, check out this print of Our Lady of Guadalupe or this canvas with three real images of Jesus’ face. A candle is nice to have if your table is tall enough to avoid accidents!
Above our home altar, we have several icons of saints that are special to our family. Above all of the saint icons, we have an icon of the Holy Family. Some friends were visiting recently and commented, “Wow, I love that you have your icons hung in a triangle. You did that to symbolize the Trinity, right?” I sheepishly admitted that thought had never crossed my mind; I had just hung them in a way that looked balanced!
You can find religious art in many places, but don’t be afraid to start small! You can always add more over time and in the meantime, there are many free options!
Now, our prayer corner is a central part of our life. We’ve moved our favorite chair to sit across from our little altar, and that chair is the favored spot to be in our house. My husband prays there in the morning before everyone wakes up, and I pray there at night after bedtime. The altar is there for us to pray together as a family in the evenings, and we gather there for the Angelus throughout the day. We keep our rosaries and prayer books under the table, and the toddler regularly tries to redecorate the space by draping rosaries everywhere or bringing rocks and leaves as little enhancements to the space.
My hope is that this little but much-loved space for God in our house will help us and our children make a similar space for Him in our hearts, wherever we go in the future.
If you have created a prayer corner in your home, share your tips below!
Cecilia loves reading, cooking, moming, and wifeing in reverse order. Most of the time, you will find her wrangling small people, but between the hours of seven and nine in the evening you will find her studying prayer, the intersections of psychology and theology, and the intricacy of human friendship.
