How do you set up a Catholic home altar? An important part of the domestic church is creating a place for family prayer.
The family that prays together, stays together.”
– Fr. Patrick Peyton
The Catholic Home Altar
This is a place that we use to gather together daily to pray the rosary, morning and night time prayers.
Plus, it just sets up the focus, front and center of our living space.
Several years ago we had our home enthroned to the Sacred Heart of Jesus. And Christ is the head of our family home life.
My husband has plans to build something from scratch for our home altar. But for now, we are just using what we have.
I have a couple of these tables from Ikea that I use in our homeschool classroom. And I pulled one to temporarily set up our altar.
I’ll share sources of what we used to set up our altar at the end of this post.
But first, I want to give another example of a neat home altar that my sister shared with me.
This is the setup in her fiancé’s family home. That image of Our Mother of Perpetual Helps is so beautiful!
Items to Decorate With
Here are a few suggestions to make the space put together.
- a simple linen
- fresh flowers
- blessed candles
- favorite devotionals
- prayer books / bible
- pictures of saints
- statues
- holy cards
Sources for Our Set Up
I wanted to make our prayer area extra special and exciting for my children. It really helps encourage their enthusiasm and attraction to devotions.
I started with a simple white linen with embroidery that reads IHS. It gives it more of a chapel vibe for our domestic church.
IHS is an ancient monogram formed from the first three letters —Iota, Eta and Sigma—of the Greek word for Jesus: IHSOUS.
Then I placed our blessed candles on brass candle holders that were found at a thrift shop.
Next, I used an old cake pedestal to raise up our Pieta statue.
And finally, we have a rosary flip book that helps my family stay focused on the mysteries when we pray together.
Home Altar Sources
Here are some of the item swe use for our Catholic home altar set up.
Christian Brands Latin Cross and IHS Lace Altar Runner
On the top of the table, we have the Latin cross altar table runner with an IHS Lace insert.
Jesus Nailed On The Cross Resin Wall Crucifix, 14 Inch
Hanging above our home altar, we have this crucifix. This one is really nice quality.
12-Inch Pieta Statue
This gorgeous 12 inch Pieta statue is really good quality and not super expensive!
Sacred Art Series Small Rosary Flip Book (4" x 5") with Desktop Easel
This rosary flip book contains images from the Joyful, Sorrowful, and Glorius mysteries and is classic style art. A great addition to help littles meditate on the mysteries.
I would love to see your home altar set up! Tag me on Instagram @JoyfullyDomestic with your images!
