An altar at home can make your worship of the Lord more regular and intense. Most of us need the visual surroundings to reflect our prayers. That is why church settings are so powerful at invoking emotions of holiness and surrender to divine power.

If you set up your home altar correctly, much of those same emotions and connectedness can be accomplished at home at any time. Your altar doesn’t have to be extravagant or expensive.

Your intuition should play a part in what items you choose and where you place them. The following instructions and tips should prove very useful in guiding your decisions at the start.

1. Choose a quiet spot or soundproof your altar space

You don’t want traffic noise and loud neighbors to disturb your praying sessions. If you have trouble finding a quiet spot or a quiet room for your altar, you can use soundproofing products to reduce the noise or block it completely.

First focus on soundproofing the window, by adding some foam tape to cover any gaps in the frame. You can use the same type of tape to cover the gaps in the door frame. Wide, noise-cancelling drapes can also work great for cancelling noise from a window.

Soundproofing panels are a popular option for walls. They can be placed directly on the wall surface. For more intense soundproofing, consider adding sound insulation inside the wall. Fiberglass batts can fill up the space between joists, while mass loaded vinyl can be attached directly to the joists. Here is a full article on soundproofing walls.

These are just some option for making the altar space void of daily sound annoyances.

2. Make sure there’s enough space to pray

This one is simple. How many people will pray at the altar? Just you, or perhaps you will have group prayers with family and friends? This should determine whether you should place the altar in a smaller or a larger room, or if you can simply place the altar in a corner of a room that is also used for some other purpose.

Keep in mind that not everyone praying has to be super close to the altar. It’s perfectly fine to stand a bit further away. As would be the case in a church, not all of us can take the front row seat.

3. Cover your altar with an altar cloth

Before placing a statue, a cross or any other items on your altar, make it look more respectable with a fine, white cloth with delicate embroidery.

4. Place holy items on the altar

Your altar doesn’t have to be overly fancy, but then again, why not? This is your personal place of worshipping the Alpha & Omega of the Universe. Might as well decorate it beautifully in His glory and show Him your devotion. Some items to consider are:

• An Altar Crucifix
• Altar candles
• Anointing Oil
• The Holy Bible

5. Initiate your altar

When you are ready, initiate the altar with a heartfelt prayer dedicate to the purpose. Here is a short prayer that can be used for this occasion:

Open my mouth, O Lord, to bless your Holy Name.

Cleanse my heart from all evil and distracting thoughts.

I consecrate this altar to your Holiness, praying it is worthy of your presence

Enlighten my understanding and inflame my will that I may serve more worthily at your holy altar.

Amen

To conclude

Building a home altar is a joyous occasion, one that should bring equal satisfaction to you and the Lord  who sees you partaking in the pleasure of His worship.

I’ve provided you with some examples on how you can make a beautiful and inspiring altar that will invite you and possibly your family to pray more often at home.

Together with my advice, I hope you’ll use your creativity and devotion to bring your ideal vision to light.