No one likes to see their family struggling. Nothing is more painful than seeing a child, spouse or sibling struggling with anxiety, depression or any other kind of mental illness.
Life is too complicated to give an easy path to avoiding these things. In fact, I’d go as far as to say avoiding these entirely may be impossible. However, there is one strong practice to help strengthen the mental health of your family.
Prayer.
In short: Prayer as a family = a mentally strong family.
In my experience, it can be hard to literally be together to pray simultaneously. While that is an ideal, it can be easier to start by creating a family culture of prayer through your environment. Start by creating an “Oratory” for your family.
I borrowed the term Oratory from a book called The Little Oratory, which lays out methods to build family prayer into your home by having a specific space set aside for it. The name isn’t important though, and you could easily call it a “prayer corner”, “chapel”, or a “grotto”.
This space is the first step in the intentional shaping of your family’s spiritual and mental life.
Why does this work? Here are three reasons your family will benefit from an Oratory.
It’s a space set aside to slow down and rest.
Families start with crying babies and diaper changes… then it’s making sure the little ones don’t hurt themselves too much… then it’s school life and sports games. At no point in history has family life been busier and it doesn’t slow down as a family gets older. However, our bodies and minds aren’t meant to keep up with an always busy pace. Building out this space sets aside a physical part of our lives for slowing down. Perhaps we have sacred images we can focus ourselves on, or it’s just quite enough that we can slow our breathing. Either way, it provides a space set aside for rest in a world that doesn’t normally allow this to happen.It’s a space that is ordered.
A well designed Oratory will be a harmony of colors and is typically contained by a frame that defines its boundaries. These help keep the space “uncluttered” and our mind from being overstimulated. It should also contain items like The Holy Bible, candles, Rosaries, etc which give a calming effect by familiarity and association. In some ways this is similar to focusing in on grounding materials used in trauma work to help the person stay centered in the present moment. This space gives a sense of order to our disordered world which can be a balm to a stressed out mind.
It provides a space to gather.
As a family, you can gather together in the Oratory and come together over a sense of peace. This doesn’t have to be long, in fact, even 5 minutes as a family can go a long way.
Everything about being human comes back to the significance of the bond and we are relational by nature. When we share the oratory space together we help to co-regulate one another and bring everyone into a shared space of balanced emotions. This strengthens our relationships and reinforces our ability to manage emotions in other settings.
Rest
Order
Gather
The benefits are just the tip of the iceberg as the deeper values are in building our relationship with God through this space. However, my hope is that this space can provide the starts to a strong family and a more peaceful home.