www.byzcath.org Forums Mysteries: The Life of Worship Icons & Iconography prayer corner...

What would I need to make a prayer corner? What kind of incense do you use? What does your corner look like? What prayers should I use? I want to start having me and my daughter pray at a prayer corner during different times of the day.

I'm sure you'll receive many varied responses, but my prayer corner consists of a small table draped with an embroidered cloth, upon which rest an icon, sometimes a candle, some prayer books below and even a Rosary. (Those are my Roman roots coming out!)

I have a table which looks like an altar. Behind it on the wall are icons. On the table are a few statues and a crucifix that have been gifts from friends. Even though I am Byzantine, the statues are cherished and I wouldn't part with them. I have candles, but will only use incense when its warm enough to open windows - allergies, I hate 'em! Just choose an area and put the items there that have meaning to you. Then pray, that's the important thing!

Just a stand or corner shelf, etc. to put your favorite icons on, a place for your Bible and prayer books, a candle stand, and a hand censer. From there you can get fancier with a hanging lampada, beeswax candles, etc. etc. Traditionally they are in an eastern corner or along an eastern wall of a room.

Ours started out as a corner but overtook most of the eastern wall of the room.

I have used quite a few different kinds of incense both in the domestic and parish church and the best I have found so far available from Holy Cross Hermitage: http://www.holycross-hermitage.com

Diak,
What flavor of incense do you recommend? What smells just like church?
One more Do you put a charcol brick/circle in the hand incensor and then sprinkle the incense on, just like in church?
Thank you all for your answers.

Dunno about Diak - but I love using rose - and I light my charcoal first and then when i'm convinced it's lit add a small chunk of incense.

I have tried using grains - but found that the ones I tried were not [ forgive me ] as nice smelling as the chunks.

I've tried other varieties - but I seem to return to rose for my personal use.

Anhelyna -- looking at her shelf with Icons , the small lamp and her incense burner

AM, that depends. For church I prefer the Self-Lite charcoal. At home I prefer Three Kings. Self-lite is larger in diameter and lights faster, which is fine for church when the kadilo is larger and you want the coal lit faster.

But for my smaller hand censer I prefer the Three Kings as it is slower burning and smaller in diameter (fits inside the hand censer much better). Three Kings is nice because it is dish-shaped, with a lip around the end and indented in the middle, which keeps the incense pills right on the coal. I wait until I see enough red to be assured it is lit and then put the pills on. You don't usually want to put more than two on at a time, as any more keeps both the coal and the incense from burning efficiently.

As far as fragrance, if it is from Holy Cross Hermitage I haven't met a fragrance I don't like. We do often change them up and try new ones. As far as smelling like "church" I think you will like anything you get from HCH.

In general we usually have three or four kinds around for various types of feasts. We like Orange Blossom and Imperial Violet for feasts of our Lord, Iveron or Rose for the Theotokos, and Cassia for Lent. We use the pure frankincense for Lent sometimes also.

Like Anhelyna I also really love Rose.

You all are awesome! Another question, where can I get the Three Kings charcol? Thank you very much. Also, do you recommend the short or the long handle hand censor?

I get the Three Kings at our local Middle Eastern deli/grocery. The Self-Lite you can get from several places, including Holy Cross.

For hand censers, the long-handled kind with wood don't get hot to hold like the all-brass short handled censers.

I wish we had a middle eastern deli/grocery around here! The university town not to far away from me has Chinese and Indian groceries, but no middle eastern groceries.... yet!! I think I bought the last three boxes of falafel mix in my entire county, and they were on clearance!! When my brother was in Iraq, he said they ate falafel with date sauce all the time.. can't find a recipe for the date sauce.

You think I can get charcoal easily here ??

I buy mine by mail order - if I don't have a nice friend who sends me some

Charcoal here in the UK is about three times the price you have to pay

Anhelyna

I am going to wait until I get some extra cash and buy one or two icons, handpainted ones. Until then I might just buy a few less expensive ones. I want to make sure they speak to me. I browsed the Franciscan Store near here today. They had a bunch of little icons from Monastery Icons. None caught my eye. I plan on slowly building my prayer corner, incorporating things for it slowly over the years. Start slow and fall into new pieces for it.

There are several Icons of St. Mary of Egypt, but I think that is always a great icon to have around.

Check out www.skete.com [skete.com] for some nice icon reproductions if you want to go that way.

When it comes time for buying your handpainted icons, we have some accomplished iconographers right here on this very Forum! Support our own!!!

Thank you Diak. Hopefully I can afford a decent icon soon! I'm rich in life, but poor in money.