The Church refers to families and our home life as the Domestic Church. Just as I am pastor of St. Edward Parish, parents are the pastors of their homes. Your home is a little parish. Parents, as I said, are the pastors, and anyone else in the house would be the parishioners (children, live-in relatives, guests, etc.). We gather as the larger Church (the Body of Christ) with our parish family on Sundays to celebrate our Lord’s triumphant resurrection; but, you should be praying and worshiping the Blessed Trinity every day in your smaller church at home.
What does this look like practically? At the BARE MINIMUM, families should eat dinner together once a week and pray before eating the meal. This is the absolute minimum. If you’re too busy to have dinner together once a week, then you’re too busy. Blame me if you must, but something needs to be cut from your family life if dinner once a week isn’t currently possible. Obviously, work schedules and medical situations create different priorities for families. I’m talking about normal family life that gets bombarded with practices, meetings, games, recitals, competitions, etc. You don’t even have to cook the meal! Just sit down as a family for dinner once a week and offer a prayer together before eating. This is the bare minimum.
When you’re ready to take the next step, find a location in your home to create a shrine/altar to God. This can be a corner in the family room, the mantle of your fireplace, an odd shaped closet, a blank space in a bedroom, etc. It should be a place that is somewhat private for when someone wants to pray alone and also large enough so your whole family can pray together. It doesn’t have to be a whole room. Most shrines are in corners of family rooms or dens. What goes in the shrine? Find a nice table (size depends on what you put on it and the space you’re using) and place on the table a crucifix, another holy image (Blessed Mother, a saint, a scene from the Bible, etc), a candle, and anything else that is important to you/your family. You can add a rosary, special coin, pictures of loved ones, incense, etc.
Once you’ve created your home shrine, PRAY THERE! As a family, start by doing some devotional prayers together like the Chaplet of Divine Mercy or the Rosary (both only take 15min to pray). You can read Sacred Scripture together, sing songs, share intercessory prayer, whatever you want to do as a family. You can even change it up with the seasons. Have an Advent Wreath as we prepare for Christmas, a purple tablecloth during Lent, flowers in the Easter season! Be creative and allow the liturgical life of the Church to spark your family’s creative juices. Just as we use signs and symbols to remind us of the reality happening at Holy Mass, you can use similar signs and symbols to remind you and your family how much God loves you.
Nothing that lasts is built over night. If you’re not praying as a family at all, start with dinner once a week with prayer before dinner. Then start to talk about a home shrine and where you would put it. Discuss as a family what you would put in your shrine. Maybe take a family pilgrimage to different shrines in the area to get ideas and check out the gift shops. Finally, create your shrine. During this whole time of creating the home shrine, pray together more than just at meals. Once your shrine is complete, start praying there. This is how you will build up and strengthen your own domestic church. Families who pray together, stay together!