I have recently created an icon corner in my home as a focus for our family 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.