I have recently created an icon corner in my home as a focus for prayer. I try to sing the Liturgy of the Hours every day. We didn’t have a lot of room and the place I live in is rented and I am not allowed to bang nails into the wall – which means I can’t hang many or heavy pictures. So I had to keep it simple.
The bare bones of an icon corner is a cross with the suffering Christ at the centre, a picture of Our Lady on the left and a face of Christ on the right. I have added to it St Isaias and St John the Baptist. I have tried to arrange them so that each is through the line of vision pointing to Our Lady who in turn is presenting to us her Son. John as the closest in time and the greatest man born of woman apart from Our Lord is placed closest
I have put a little print of the Sacred Heart of Jesus there too. At the end of every Hour that I pray as a personal devotion I always invoke the Sacred Heart and ask for mercy. On the horizontal surface I have a St Benedict medal and a little container with some relics that were given to me when I was confirmed at Farm St Church in London.
I have tried to make this the most brightly coloured part of the room so that it is the main visual focus when you walk in. The other paintings in the room are not religious but I have deliberately chosen them, for example the landscape shown which is an Andrew Wyeth print, so that the colour is muted and it will never distract from the saints. This is consistent with the way that an artist organises the composition of a painting – the main foci are coloured and the supporting parts are less detailed and less brightly coloured.
This was a print of a watercolour landscape by Andrew Wyeth that I found in a consignment store framed. It only cost me $5!
I chose it because it used mute colours (consistent with the baroque style even though Andrew Wyeth is a modern painter – he died a couple of years ago).
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I have a prayer altar on the top of my chest of drawers: Crucifix, Our Lady of Fatima statue, image of Jesus King of All Nations, image of Divine Mercy, and a first class relic.
What books do you have under your edition of the Divine Office?
The green one is the St Dunstan Psalter. I use the Divine Office book to get things proper to the day, but sing the psalm itself from the St Dunstan. I have my little girl with me in the mornings when I sing it and she is just learning to speak. She does listen to what I am doing, so I want to impress upon her at this stage the beautiful more traditional English that is in this psalter. The other one will be whatever daily meditations or readings I am going through at the particular time (not sure which one to look at the photo).
Thank you. I thought I recognised the green book – I have it in the hardback edition. I am an Ordinariate Catholic, and I use the St. Dunstan’s Psalter for the Office. Excellent book.
I hope that when we have our official edition of the Liturgy and Office, it is close to what is in the St. Dunstan’s Psalter.
I don’t, but would love to see it. I’ll keep my eyes open.