Why Keep Home Altars?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Silvereel
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
S

Silvereel

Guest
I was reading the thread with people showing pictures of their home altars earlier and I was curious… why do Catholics keep home altars? It didn’t really address that all that much, other than ‘to remind us to pray’.
As someone interested in joining the Church I am quite curious 🙂
 
Silvereel said:
I was reading the thread with people showing pictures of their home altars earlier and I was curious… why do Catholics keep home altars? It didn’t really address that all that much, other than ‘to remind us to pray’.
As someone interested in joining the Church I am quite curious 🙂
Click to expand...
Silvereel, my family also used to have a family altar when I was a child. It is not to remind us to pray, it is to focus our minds when we do pray. A candle or two would be lit at the family altar at dusk , and the family would pray together before the altar every evening. We were told, “A family that prays together stays together.” Just like being in a Church helps our minds focus better on God, so does the presence of an altar keep the mind better focussed on God. Catholics do not worship idols or pictures/icons, we simply use them as symbols to remind us of Jesus and Mary, just as we would use pictures to remind us of those we love. The altar helped to remind us to pray for God’s protection before leaving home. We would spend a few seconds before the family altar and pray for God’s protection when we were out in the world. My mother always insisted on us praying before leaving home. Since she was a housewife who would see us to the door, we could not slink out of the house without praying!
 
Silvereel said:
I was reading the thread with people showing pictures of their home altars earlier and I was curious… why do Catholics keep home altars? It didn’t really address that all that much, other than ‘to remind us to pray’.
As someone interested in joining the Church I am quite curious 🙂
Click to expand...
Why not? I don’t think there needs to be a concrete reason for it,
 
Mine is quite simple. I have a small icon of Christ Pantocrator on my dresser with a candle burning before it. It’s to focus my mind when I pray.
 
There are so many reasons to keep a home altar.

Beauty and peace are two big ones.

Home altars, and the icons that can often frequent them are beautiful and can help bring much needed peace to an often large and often loud faithfully Catholic family.

Of course, there is a bigger reason.

The family is rightly called the “Domestic Church.” The home therefore is like the chapel of the domestic Church.

Shouldn’t a domestic church have a domestic altar?
 
Silvereel, Home Altars help focus our mind when we pray. They help to bring our mind in tune to the divine when we pray. As a child, my family had an Altar for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Family prayers were always said in front of the altar.The Altar helped in bringing to our consciousness the presence of God among us - right there in our house!! This made so much impression on me as a child that as an adult, I joined the Association of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - and have a beautiful Altar of the Sacred Heart in my house now. Before leaving the house, I stop in front of the Altar to inform our Lord that I am leaving the house and seek his blessings - and on coming back, I go straight to the Altar to thank Him for his care and protection for me that day!!! EGODI
 
The point of it for many of us IS simply that having a dedicated place in the home in which to pray helps us when we DO pray …

Like people have a dedicated gym area in their homes to help them focus on their exercise, or a dedicated study/library/den/home office for when they want to concentrate on reading/work/study … and so on. Isn’t that good enough reason?

Another way to look at it is that people who love their families will often have a particular corner of the room, or place in their house, where they keep all their family mementoes - photographs, kids’ artwork or awards from school, knicknacks that are gifts from family members and so on.

A home altar is in a sense that bit of the house where we keep our ‘photos’ (pictures or statues) of members of our heavenly family, or ‘knicknacks’ (baptism candles, rosary beads or what have you) to do with that spiritual family.
 
They also announce to those who enter our homes, “This is who I am, a Child of the God of Abraham, Issac, and Jacob, Redeemed by the Mercy and Sacrifice of Christ, and an unworthy Servant of the Lord.”

And yes, for many, they are a reminder to pray often.
And when one prays, one should pray at one’s home altar, as a focus for the prayers.

It is also a reminder of what should be important in your life.

It is also a way to give a portion of your home as a token of a portion of your life.

I have a growing collection of icons on the wall… Pantocrator, Theotokos, St German of Alaska, Blessed Theodore Romzha, Entrance of Christ, and a couple more. They are right at eye level. They are readily visible from the entire room.
 
Silvereel said:
I why do Catholics keep home altars? It didn’t really address that all that much, other than ‘to remind us to pray’.
Click to expand...
Catholics do not keep home altars. An altar is the table of sacrifice reserved only for Mass. Unless it is perhaps a retired priest who is confined to his home and has permission to celebrate Mass there, private homes do not have altars.

Many Catholics have prayer corners or devotional shrines or prayer tables in their homes, also in school or CCD classrooms. It is an aid to prayer. It should always have a crucifix, may have candles, images of Mary or other saints, other devotional art, rosary, prayerbook, bible etc. Often the picture of family members, especially the deceased, to remind us to pray for (not to) them. Some may be very ornate but that usually reflects popular piety, coming from their culture and ethnic background, not necessarily universal Catholic practice.

It is also an important alternative to the other “altar” that occupies the central position in most modern homes: the TV or “entertainment center”. Families should devote at least as much space (and time) to devotional and prayer use as they due to entertainment.
 
We have what my daughters call “the praying corner.” It is a small, low table with a floor-chair (we live in Japan) with a statue of the Sacred Heart on it. We have candles there, and we keep our Rosaries hanging up beside it. It is a place we have reserved for prayer in our house, and it helps to keep my mind focused when I pray there because that place is used for nothing else. (By the way, we keep our television and stereo in the closet. We do not want them to dominate our room–or our thoughts.)
 
Sillara said:
. (By the way, we keep our television and stereo in the closet. We do not want them to dominate our room–or our thoughts.)
Click to expand...
excellent idea. If I had it to do over, I would have done the same when raising our kids
 
I’m told my grandmother had one (before I was born) which was made for her by a family member. However, I don’t know if an altar is as necessary as keeping certain images visible throughout one’s home. Perhaps, a bedside table might serve nicely for whatever images are preferred, since it is private and can be used for morning and evening prayers, in particular. While a candle may not be necessary (and might be a fire hazard) - no matter where in the house, it seems that many people refrain from or don’t even consider displaying religious images at all.

I’ve read what appears to be words of Our Lord that, “I will bless every place in which a picture of My Heart shall be exposed and honored.” (I keep the Sacred Heart’s picture or statue in every room.) Same for the Infant of Prague, a Crucifix and the Blessed Mother. Thus, your entire home can become a private altar when you move from room to room with these images available all day reminding us and giving us the opportunity to pray/speak to Our Lord, the Blessed Mother and the Saints all day, everyday.
 
ConservativeOne said:
I’m told my grandmother had one (before I was born) which was made for her by a family member. However, I don’t know if an altar is as necessary as keeping certain images visible throughout one’s home. Perhaps, a bedside table might serve nicely for whatever images are preferred, since it is private and can be used for morning and evening prayers, in particular. While a candle may not be necessary (and might be a fire hazard) - no matter where in the house, it seems that many people refrain from or don’t even consider displaying religious images at all.

I’ve read what appears to be words of Our Lord that, “I will bless every place in which a picture of My Heart shall be exposed and honored.” (I keep the Sacred Heart’s picture or statue in every room.) Same for the Infant of Prague, a Crucifix and the Blessed Mother. Thus, your entire home can become a private altar when you move from room to room with these images available all day reminding us and giving us the opportunity to pray/speak to Our Lord, the Blessed Mother and the Saints all day, everyday.
Click to expand...
We have a Crucifix in every room and pictures in most as well. We do have a prayer table with the Sacred Heart pictures, statues of Jesus and Mary, a candle ( we don’t light it, it was a gift and the candle holder has a beautiful picture of Mary holding Jesus on it). We have a little basket of rosary’s, prayer books and the Bible. We also have a small bottle of Holy Water on the table. We have some small baskets under the table with books for the kids, prayer books and books about the Saints. Above the table we have a picture of the Holy Family. It’s such a nice place to sit and pray or read. Just peaceful even if the rest of the house is chaos:) We have a Holy Water font that I was given for Christmas this year by my dear husband and a statue of Mary in our foyer. I think it’s only a matter of time before my Protestant friends say something:D
 
Keeping a home or personal altar is NOT a “Catholic” thing.

It’s very Biblical to build “altars” to the Lord. See the Old Testament. Usually the altars were just piles of rocks, but these altars made it clear that the Lord did or said something great at that spot, and provided an everlasting remembrance for Israel.

So to me, it makes sense to build a “home altar” to remind us that God is at work in this family.

A lot of evangelical Protestants have what they call a “prayer closet.” It’s not really a closet–it may just be the kitchen table or a corner of the sofa, or in some case, the bed (to kneel next to). A “prayer closet” is actually a state of mind, a place inside your sould where you go to be quiet before God and pray and seek Him will. But it can also be a real, physical place. Having a specific place set aside for prayer makes it easier to establish the habit of praying. It’s something that you plan and make time for, not just something that you do whenever you “feel” like it. (Evangelicals tend to reject faith based on “feelings,” contrary to what a lot of Catholics think.)

And in the book, Little Women, the Catholic maid Esther teaches little Amy about setting aside a place to pray and be quiet and think good thoughts. I think it’s a fascinating part of the book–why a Catholic maid? What happened in Louisa May Alcott’s life that she created this character–a Catholic maid–to teach a little girl the importance of regular prayer?
 
Thanks for your answers 🙂
It was just a matter of curiosity. I’ve actually been saying my prayers for the last week or so in front of some ‘prayer cards’ of the saints and Christ, as well as the Sacred Heart. I don’t have anything I’d really call an altar to place them on, just the book shelf, but I suppose I’ve been using one all along.
 
Technically, home altars are not altars–they’re shrines, right? An altar is a place of sacrifice (either an animal in the OT or the sacrifice of the Mass). A shrine, however, is a consecrated place at which one might pray or meditate. Or am I way off here?
 
When we speak of ‘home altars’, we are using the word ‘altar’ in a nontechnical, colloquial sense. An altar in the technical sense of the word is indeed a place of sacrifice, e.g. the altar in a Catholic church where Mass is celebrated.
It’s a commonly used phrase, though. We just need to remember it’s being used in an accommodated sense.
 
egodi said:
Silvereel, Home Altars help focus our mind when we pray. They help to bring our mind in tune to the divine when we pray. As a child, my family had an Altar for the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Immaculate Heart of Mary. Family prayers were always said in front of the altar.The Altar helped in bringing to our consciousness the presence of God among us - right there in our house!! This made so much impression on me as a child that as an adult, I joined the Association of the Sacred Heart of Jesus - and have a beautiful Altar of the Sacred Heart in my house now. Before leaving the house, I stop in front of the Altar to inform our Lord that I am leaving the house and seek his blessings - and on coming back, I go straight to the Altar to thank Him for his care and protection for me that day!!! EGODI
Click to expand...
I need to start doing that… as soon as I make my home altar. Thanks for sharing! 😃
 
I have a home altar for several reasons:

As a place of honour for God and his saints, God is first in my life, doesn’t it logically follow that my home would reflect that?

A place to attune my heart to God, and to contemplate God.

A place to tell the world and anyone who comes in my home, “Hey! I’m Catholic! And proud of it.” 🙂

My home altar/shrine has a crucifix, images of St. Mary and Christ the teacher, as well as candles, flowers, and incense. I look at that crucifix all the time, and cross myself before it every day when I get out of bed, and every night when I go to bed. To me, Jesus is everything; without Him I am nothing.

I enter the Church this Easter; can’t wait. 🙂
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top