10 Tips for Building an Intentional Domestic Church

By Melayna Alicea

When my husband and I got married, we consecrated our marriage to the Holy Family. We wanted to make sure that we were setting our marriage and family up with intentionality and putting our domestic church at the center. 

Building our domestic church has been our greatest joy. We have started to implement family traditions and practices to intentionally build our domestic church. We are far from perfect at any of these ten tips that I am about to lay out, but I wanted to share with you some of the ways we are practicing liturgical living in our little domestic church. 

With all of these tips, the goal is to have fun. Make your faith a part of your everyday life. Make it fun. Make it memorable. Make it something that brings you and your family joy and fond memories. 

1.Decorate Your Home According to the Liturgical Season

This is something I need to be better about, but it doesn’t have to be hard. I have seen some people create different wreaths for their doors and tables for each Liturgical Season. Meanwhile, others just have a tablecloth that matches the color of the season. 

No matter how elaborate you want to go with this idea, decorating your home according to the Liturgical Season is a great way to establish your home’s identity as the domestic church. It also helps your children to make the connection between church and home. If what they see in church resembles what they see at home, they will forever associate the Church with home. 

2. Celebrate the Liturgical New Year

For Catholics, the new year begins at the beginning of Advent. During this specific time of year, when society obsesses over materialistic objects, a great way to mentally reset and refocus on what is important is to celebrate the Liturgical New Year.

I get excited about Advent, so our celebration usually looks like a fun breakfast on the first Sunday of Advent, lighting the first candle, and saying “Happy New Year!” to my sleepy husband and babies. 

3. Do Advent and Lent as a Family

I love Advent and Lent. Every year, I have to ask my spiritual director to help me hone in on one or two things to do for Advent or Lent because I get a little overzealous. One thing that has been beautiful for our family is choosing something to all do together.

For Advent, I like to do the Jesse Tree. Right now, my children are all too little to get really into it, but my hope is for us to do crafts and make Jesse Tree ornaments in the future. 

If you don’t want to get a specific Jesse Tree and have ornaments, you can do what my husband and I have been doing since the Advent before our wedding. I would read the day’s readings and devotions while he drew a Tree and added little pictures to the tree every night. By Christmas Eve, it is a beautiful tree filled with pictures telling Salvation history.

We have saved all of these trees and hope to frame them for display for future Advents.

My husband and I have chosen something to give up and something to add together every Lent since we started dating. One year, we added the 54-day Rosary novena (yes I know it outlasts Lent). This past year, we gave up worrying. We each had a vase that started empty, and every time we caught ourselves worrying, we had to put a rock in the vase, pause, and pray “Jesus I trust in you, and I place my hope and faith in you.” This was a great couple's devotion, and my competitive side had a lot of fun trying to not worry as much as him. 

4. Celebrate the Big Feast Days Other Than Just Christmas and Easter

The church has numerous fun feast days, and I am not just talking about the Holy Days of Obligation. Think Pentecost, Ascension of Christ, Visitation, Presentation, Annunciation, and so many more!

Some things that we love to do are make a meal around the feast day, make a cake if it’s Pentecost (aka the birthday of the church), get together with other Catholic friends to celebrate, etc.  

There are so many ideas out there, but integrating these feast days as celebrations into your life is a great way to teach your children about the faith and make it fun. 

5. Celebrate Baptismal Anniversaries 

I like to think of Baptisms as my children’s Christian birthdays. They are just as important as their actual birthdays, and I think they are worth celebrating! 

You can do this in any number of ways. You could light their Baptismal Candle during family prayers, take your child out to dinner or a movie, or let them pick out a special dessert.

Since mine are still so little, we have just had a special dessert for Baptism days, but I hope to make it an annual day celebrating that child for being a member of the Body of Christ.

6. Celebrate Saint Name Sake/ Patron Saint Feast Days

You may or may not have intentionally named your child after a saint, but chances are, your child’s name at least has a derivative of the name of a saint. Either way, celebrating their namesake/ patron’s feast day is a fun way to integrate the faith into your family’s life.

Let that child pick out a special dessert or meal that day, find some activities around the saint to do, and read a story about that saint at dinner to educate the family on the significance of that saint’s life. 

7. Practice Monthly Devotions

The Catholic faith is so cool. There are so many devotions to choose from, and there are even monthly themes! For instance, May is the month of Mary and June is the Month of the Sacred Heart of Jesus.

As a family, dive into those devotions. Say a daily rosary during May, and crown Mary with flowers. Say the novena to the Sacred Heart of Jesus in June and maybe even enthrone your home to the Sacred Heart!

8. Find a Prayer or Devotion that You Can Do With Your Family Daily.

Every family has its own specific needs and time they can reasonably spend in prayer together depending on their season of life. Find a daily prayer or devotion to do as a family and dedicate a specific time every day to do it together.

You could say a family rosary, read from a devotional book, listen to a podcast like “Bible in a Year with Fr. Mike Schmitz”, or even say a long novena like the Twelve Year Novena (I will be writing a whole separate post on the beauty of this novena). 

9. Make Sundays Intentional

Sundays are the Lord’s days. We are celebrating the rising of Jesus. Every Sunday is intended to be a mini Easter. Treat it as such. 

Have a nice family meal, rest and spend quality time together, and attend church as a family. Use this day as a day to rest, rejuvenate, and be thankful for the life you have been given. This will create fond memories for years to come. 

10. Have Art Work Around Your House That Points to The Church

Your home is the domestic church. If you want your children to register Catholic Churches as home, make your physical home a replica of the church. 

Have a prayer corner for family and alone prayer time. Hang crucifixes in every room. Hang a wall rosary on the wall. And decorate your walls with pictures and icons of Jesus, Mary, and the Saints. They are our spiritual family and can be included with our physical family. 

All ten of these tips and their many suggestions are just that, suggestions. Don’t allow your perfectionistic nature to overdo itself and try to do it all at once. Take these tips, see what works for your family, and enjoy the Liturgical Living that will develop within your domestic church.