The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home

Leila Lawler, co-author of The Little Oratory, discusses how to make your home into a domestic church

About the Book

Keeping a faithful prayer life with your family isn’t easy. From herding distracted children to managing the seemingly endless litany of prayers and devotions, our spiritual life all too often feels frantic and burdensome.

This isn’t the way it should be. Our prayer life, our family life, and our work life should — and can! — be in harmony. When they are, our family is a powerhouse of grace, and Our Lord transforms our home into a little Eden — a little bit of heaven on earth.

With simplicity and holy wisdom, authors David Clayton and Leila Marie Lawler show you how to bring peace to your home by integrating your family into the calm, truly joyful way of Mother Church. Her feasts and seasons, prayers and devotions are gifts that draw us closer to God and unfold before us His marvelous plan of salvation.

To help you live the liturgical life of the Church more fully, David and Leila reclaim here an almost lost tradition that families used for centuries to build a beautiful bridge between home and church: the little oratory.

Consisting of a modest table and icons, the little oratory is a visible sign of spiritual awareness and devotion. It extends the Eucharistic worship of the Mass into the heart of your home, spiritually nourishing your family and preparing them to transform the world through prayer and charity.

Building your own little oratory is simple, and in these pages you’ll discover just how easy it is. In fact, you likely have most of the pieces in your home already except, perhaps, the sacred art. That’s why we’ve included here seven full-colored icons that are ready for framing, enabling you to get started right away!

By following the wise advice in this book, you’ll discover the peace and love that flows from a home that is focused on Christ. You’ll also learn . . .

• How to use sacred art to strengthen your prayer life
• How to extend Catholic beliefs and devotions into every room of the house
• Why the Liturgy of the Hours is important and how it can make your family holy
• How to pray the Rosary with children and keep the rowdiest of them calm and reverent
• The active role children can and should play in the prayer life of the family
• What to do when only one parent takes the spiritual life seriously
• How to overcome the feeling that you’re too busy to pray
• Practical ways to extend the liturgical life into your workplace
• And countless other tips to help you practice your faith in the heart of your home

This is one of the most beautiful books I’ve ever seen. How I wish I’d had it when I first became a Catholic, not just for myself, as a husband and father, but for my family, too. It’s a commonplace of Christian tradition to call the home a sanctuary or “domestic church,” but before a home can be a church, it must become an oratory — a place of prayer. The authors of this book know that there are many obstacles, and they show us how to overcome them. This book is inspiring yet practical, realistic yet revolutionary. If one book has the potential to transform the Catholic family (and society), this is it.     -Scott Hahn

About Leila Marie Lawler

Leila Marie Lawler is a wife of one, mother of seven, and grandmother of five (and counting), living in central Massachusetts. Leila encountered Christianity as a high school student and entered the Catholic Church in 1979, the year she married Philip Lawler, a noted Catholic journalist. Her own journey of learning the Faith has given her an appreciation for the difficulties and excitement today’s family faces in living its Christian calling. She encourages audiences of all kinds to commit to the renewal of family life. Leila practices “kitchen-sink philosophy” at Like Mother, Like Daughter (www.likemotherlikedaughter.org), a website offering practical and theoretical insight into all aspects of daily life. She writes on everything from cooking and knitting to education and recovering what she and her daughters call “the collective memory.”