Living Home Shrine


The Living Home Shrine is a place of prayer in the home, a place to honor Mary, a place of grace,

In our world today, who can give us the help that we need for every moment of our lives?  In our home shrine the Blessed Mother will take care that we obtain what we need and hope.

“The Blessed Mother wants to withdraw into our little shrine and there educate all the members of the family according to the Nazareth Family Ideal to inspire them anew so that they become deeply religious people.  She wants to relieve father and mother of some of the burden of their educational responsibilities.  the Blessed Mother, therefore, will not only take care that the children grow up in a pronounced religious and Marian atmosphere, she will take over the responsibility for seeing to it that under her protection and guidance the whole family will navigate victoriously through the secularized atmosphere of our day.”

Fr. Kentenich, our founder, spoke at great length about the Marian atmosphere, education, and pointed to a threefold task which the Blessed Mother has as our educator:

  1. She gives us an openness, a receptivity and sensitivity for Divine values.
  2. She gives us a great objective ideal which will answer many difficulties of our time.
  3. She gives us the assuredness and guarantee that these ideals can be realized in life.

Vatican II spoke of the family as the domestic Church.  The family in the Church is a community of redeemed persons united to each other in love and faithfulness, the well-spring of new life.  Each family is a vital cell of the Church and co-determines the fruitfulness and life within the Church.  The family received from God its mission to be the first and vital cell of society.

The domestic Church needs constant education in the faith:

  • The family should be a sign of unity for the world.
  • The Church of the home should reach out for families who are far from the faith.
  • The Blessed Mother is the Mother of the domestic Church
  • The Home Shrine is the visible image of the domestic Church.

The Living Home Shrine is making an essential contribution to the Church fulfilling an apostolate.

The Living Home Shrine is the realization of the domestic Church.  It is a gift for the Church.  When each member of the Living Home Shrine lives his or her symbol, the Blessed Mother is better able to Renew, Educate, and Send the family members out to renew society and the world and thereby answer the Church’s call to evangelize the world in Christ.

Here are summaries of Sister Marie Day’s educational DVD series on My Home, Your Shrine:

Pray the Living Home Shrine Litany.

Home Shrine Prayer:
My room (home) is your Shrine
where you work for the Father’s glory.
There He transforms my whole being
into the Trinity’s most beloved Shrine,
where the sanctuary light continuously burns
and the glowing fire of love never dies;
where the fire of sacrifice upon sacrifice
banishes all selfishness from the heart;
where roses decorate the altar
and lilies never cease to bloom;
where paradisal breezes waft
and raise heart and mind to heaven;
where the spirit of the world cannot enter
as in the eternal city of Sion;
where peace reigns and happiness laughs
because God’s angel keeps diligent watch;
where Christ rules and is triumphant
and leads the whole world to the Father.”

Gift for the Church