This month, we have been discussing how our homes are our Domestic Church. In my quest for new ideas to bring into our home, I virtually met up at Faith and Family Connect, with Catholic author, Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle. She has written several books on this topic and we spoke about my desire to spread the news of her wonderful book entitled, The Domestic Church: Room by Room. At the end of August, we will raffle off two of her books to two different Catholic Mamas.

One will be the aforementioned title and the other is her book, Grace Cafe: Serving Up Recipes for Faithful Mothering. I will give you details on how to sign up for the giveaway at the end of this post. 😉

My family’s decision to homeschool (after many months of prayer), was only made possible because the Lord willed it. In turn, our lives have changed tremendously for the best. We are a more united and prayerful family than we were a year ago. As I reflected on this past year, I realized we grew stronger as a couple and as a family and it had to do with two things, one, opening our lives more to the Lord, and two, creating a Domestic Church within our home.

So how do you create a domestic church, you may ask? Lets begin, room by room and see the appearance of our homes. As I think of this a little further…and pray tons, I realized that our home was missing something. We have the Sacramentals all over the house, rosaries, crucifixes, etc., and yes, we are missing statues! but, that’s not what I was searching for. We are missing a central location for prayer. When I taught in Catholic schools (my pre-homeschooling life) all of the classrooms had something in common – no matter what grade and that was a prayer table or classroom altar. So, this is what our home (and homeschool) is missing, a Family Altar! The next question would be, where? What better place than the center of our home, the mantle of our fireplace! This is the place I would I love to create our Family Altar. It is my nature to jump right to it and get it all done! But as my tech guy (my DH, that is) and I prayed about it, we thought it would be great if this was our first homeschool Religion project! So I’m looking for ideas….I found this wonderful site with tons of ideas:

“In contradistinction to the typical home which has a television set as its centerpiece, the focal point of a Catholic home should be the family altar — a place where the family can gather to offer up their prayers to the Most Holy Trinity and to ask the Saints to pray for them. Morning Offerings, family Rosaries, prayers for special intentions, family novenas, Lectio Divina, etc., can all be made here.

Family altars, ideally, should be on the Eastern wall of a home, in the same orientation as church buildings. The altar can be as simple or as elaborate as one desires, but should be beautiful and conducive to contemplation. A few key items to be placed on or around the altar table are:

Crucifix
Sacred Scripture (Douay-Rheims)
Missal(s)
icons (statues and/or two-dimensional)
a Holy Water font
a cellar of blessed salt
charcoal incense burner
Rosaries
vigil candles, candles blessed at Candlemas (to burn on All Saints Day and in times of trouble), and Baptismal candles (for use at weddings and during Unction)

Other things one might want to consider are the Breviary or the Little Office of Our Lady, Holy Cards, flowers, prie-dieux, the names of dead family members printed on beautiful parchment so we may be reminded to pray for them (having their funeral holy cards there would be nice, too), pictures of the Stations of the Cross or the Mysteries of the Rosary, something with which to play sacred music and Gregorian chant, sick call sets, palm branches from Palm Sunday, certificate of a papal blessing, etc.”

If you visit the wonderful folks at fisheaters.com, you can see more ideas beyond the Family Altar as well on this very same topic of creating a Domestic Church. A great site! I also searched the web and found some pictures and examples of Family Altars. I can’t wait to get started, with my family, on ours. If you already have a Family Altar, I’d love to see a picture of yours! Do share!

So, want to know how to win one of her fantastic books? It’s simple… do one or more of the following:

1. Leave a comment after this post, on what we’d find on your FAMILY ALTAR and why they are so important in your Domestic Church. (if this is new to you, comment on if this is something you’d consider doing with your own family).
   
2. Post a picture of your Family Altar (if you have one already).
3. Subscribe to our RSS feed (see the button above on the left).
4. Blog about this topic and link back to this blog. Remember to come back and leave a comment with your link to get credit for your post on “Family Altars”.
5. Add yourself to our “Follow Us” section.

Each of the above options will give you an entry per item you do, so you have four chances of entering! At the end of the month, we will post the two winners. It’s that easy!

So Mamas, start commenting, posting, blogging, adding, etc.! to get your hands on these great books!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Widely published and deeply experienced in both family life and religious life, Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle counted Blessed Teresa of Calcutta among her personal friends. She maintains numerous Web sites and has founded several Catholic apostolates and ministries. For more information on this wonderful Catholic author, please visit here. For a daily dose of inspiration, visit Donna’s blog at http://viewdomesticchurch.blogspot.com/.

For a review of the Domestic Church book, check out this Catholic Blogging Homeschooling Mama’s site.

As many of you have read in our introductory post, this blog has been completely directed from God. He stirred in me to start this and I will do as He wishes with it…which leads me to something really exciting! How important is it that we surround ourselves with all things Catholic? I’m not implying that we lock ourselves in our homes and don’t socialize with others that aren’t; this, actually, would go against our Church teachings. What I’m saying is that for us to go out and spread the Word of God, we have to start with a solid foundation in our homes.

This month, we will be having active discussions on creating a Domestic Church in our homes. In my quest for new ideas in our home, I virtually met up at Faith and Family Connect, with Catholic author, Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle. She has written several books on this topic and we spoke about my desire to spread the news of her wonderful book entitled, The Domestic Church: Room by Room. At the end of August, we will raffle off two of her books to two different Catholic Mamas.

One will be the aforementioned title and the other is her book, Grace Cafe: Serving Up Recipes for Faithful Mothering. I will give you details on how to sign up for the giveaway at the end of this post. 😉

My family’s decision to homeschool (after many months of prayer), was only made possible because the Lord willed it. In turn, our lives have changed tremendously for the best. We are a more united and prayerful family than we were a year ago. As I reflected on this past year, I realized we grew stronger as a couple and as a family and it had to do with two things, one, opening our lives more to the Lord, and two, creating a Domestic Church within our home.

So how do you create a domestic church, you may ask? Lets begin, room by room and see the appearance of our homes. As I think of this, it reminds me of something Father John Corapi said once – possibly in his conversion story. (If you haven’t had a chance to hear it, it is the BEST and most powerful conversion story-see next short blog, a condensed version of it!) Long story short, as the Lord was calling him back to Church, he wanted to be in a safe place, “were Satan would be scared to go” and he decided (with his mother’s persuasion) to go back home and contemplate on his life. Why was his parent’s home a safe place? It wasn’t that this home was in another state it was the fact that it was bombarded with Sacramentals! There are pictures of Mary, Jesus, the saints, Crucifixes, scapulars, saint relics, family altars, Holy Water fonts, etc., there. He says it best and in the funniest way, his parents home said to Satan in big block letter, “KEEP OUT! or ELSE!” So for starters, look around your home. Does it say, this is a Catholic home? Do you have all the sacramentals that our rich faith avails us? What are sacramentals? Here’s a great excerpt written by Catholic author, Regina Doman on this subject:

“Sacramentals run the gamut from blessings of consecrated virgins to articles such as relics and rosaries. Some, such as holy water, are used by almost every Catholic. Others are more personal, such as devotionals to a particular saint.

Sacramentals have embellished the official liturgies of the Church or sprung from the cultures of different peoples and different times.

For being Catholic is more than the bare bones: attending Mass, receiving Communion twice a year, going to confession, getting confirmed, married and buried in the Church. It is even more than practicing virtues and avoiding sin. It is a way of life in which the body, its senses and spirit are intermingled.

Sacramentals, by their very voluntariness, their apparent status as extras, can supply the externals that make the Catholic way of life singular and outstanding.

Sacramentals are not superstitions, holdovers from pre-Christian days, or Catholic substitutes for the longing of pagans to dance around trees and mutter spells. There is a part of us that longs for something tangible we can hold on to, something to look at, something to touch, something to sing, chant or recite, something that interacts with the senses. The sacraments, those sacred mixtures of matter and the Holy Spirit, fulfill that need. And so, in a lesser way, do sacramentals.”

To read the whole article, go here.

So, want to know how to win one of her fantastic books? It’s simple… do one or more of the following:

1. Leave a comment after this post, on what Sacramentals we’d find in your home and why are they so important in your Domestic Church.
2. Subscribe to our RSS feed (see the button above on the left).
3. Blog about this topic and link back to this blog. Remember to come back and leave a comment with your link to get credit for your post on “Sacramentals”.
4. Add yourself to our “Follow Us” section.

Each of the above options will give you an entry per item you do, so you have four chances of entering! At the end of the month, we will post the two winners. It’s that easy!

So Mamas, start commenting, posting, blogging, adding, etc.! to get your hands on these great books!

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Widely published and deeply experienced in both family life and religious life, Donna-Marie Cooper O’Boyle counted Blessed Teresa of Calcutta among her personal friends. She maintains numerous Web sites and has founded several Catholic apostolates and ministries. For more information on this wonderful Catholic author, please visit here. For a daily dose of inspiration, visit Donna’s blog at http://viewdomesticchurch.blogspot.com/.

For a review of the Domestic Church book, check out this Catholic Blogging Homeschooling Mama’s site.