I was a middle school Edge counselor for years. Edge is the 6th grade – 8th grade youth group program at Catholic Churches. One night at Edge, we had a beautiful session about the importance family prayer time.

I usually am assigned to the 8th graders during small group time.

One of the questions during small groups was, “do you have a dedicated place to pray in your home?”

I sat quietly, hoping that one of the youth would speak first. The like-able, involved-in-everything 8th grader spoke up first. He said, “Yeah, my grandmother has this beautiful table with Holy cards and rosaries that we can sit next to anytime. She will pray with us or we can just pray be ourselves.” He went on to explain that he finds himself using this space before big games or tests to make sure he has his priorities straight.

I watched as everyone in the group processed what he had shared. I was relieved that he had spoken but I was also embarrassed that I had no such place in my home. I was going to talk about praying at our dinner table. I hadn’t ever really considered dedicating a quiet space in our home to the beauty of prayer.

Over the next few years, we collected different beautiful icons that I wanted to remind me to lift my thoughts towards heaven. We wanted pictures of the Holy Family and Saints to remind us to stay on the journey and give glory to God each and every day. Last year, Brian took a trip to Romania for work and brought home beautiful icons for each member of the family.

I began to plan how I wanted to arrange this space and it has turned out to be such a sweet and peaceful spot in our home.

The lovely people at Holyart sent us the beautiful standing crucifix to complete our family prayer space.

We had no idea that we would soon be using this space more and more during social isolation. The crucifix arrived just in time for us to watch Mass and receive spiritual communion at home. What a beautiful blessing!