Five Ways to Teach Children to Believe in the Eucharist
Growing up a cradle Catholic, I can’t say that I truly put much thought into the moment of the consecration or the moment of receiving Jesus Christ. While every child is often quite excited to finally participate in Holy Communion with the rest of their family, much of that excitement may wear off during the years. It is often times that repeating a task over and over can eventually become monotonous, and without much significance. While we would like to think that we will never grow weary in our faith, it is often possible that at some points we may.
If you had asked me just a few years back if I truly believed that the bread and the wine become the body and blood of Christ, there’s a good chance that I wouldn’t have known how to answer. To be honest, I don’t believe that I gave it much thought each time I received Holy Communion. My heart wasn’t yearning or fluttering, and my actions were just monotonous reactions, rather than reverent gestures coming from a yearning heart.
Research from a 2019 study shows that unfortunately only 31% of Catholics may actually believe that the bread and wine do become Jesus. This shows us that most Catholics do not believe in the real presence, which is startling. If we are being honest, many Catholics probably haven’t really sat with the thought of transubstantiation and unpacked what it entails. Now, as many Catholic churches participate in the Eucharistic Revival, we have to do our part to spread the message. And this message starts within our homes.
Sending our children off to catechism weekly, monthly or summerly, is a wonderful blessing to our family and our child’s faith education. However, we have to be honest with ourselves and realize that catechism is just supplemental to what we, as parents, should already be doing within the home. Parents are initially their child’s first teacher of the faith. We have to take the extra steps, the extra discussions and the extra measures to ensure that we are laying down the groundwork for strong, faithful Catholics. Our children are quite literally the future of the church!
So how can we improve this startling statistic and help our children believe in the true presence?
Actually explain it to them (in their terms). Nowhere in scripture during the Last Supper does Jesus say, “This is a symbol of my body,” or “This is a symbol of my blood.” In fact Jesus says, “This IS my body.” He also proceeds to say, “Drink ye all of it, For this is my blood of the new testament, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” Thankfully the Lord made it clear to us right there in scripture that He is truly present in the Eucharist. It is Him! While children may still have trouble understanding that bread can become a body and wine can become blood, we can teach them that this is part of the Mystery of Faith. Within this Mystery of Faith, we simply cannot unpack all the details and always have it make sense, rather we can simply have faith in knowing that Jesus is there.
Take them to Adoration. As a young adult, my mother often talked about stopping at a local church to visit their adoration chapel and sadly, I didn’t know what she actually meant. Growing up our church did not have an adoration chapel that I can recall visiting, so visiting our Lord there was not an idea that I was used to. It’s such a gift to be able to pop into any local church’s adoration chapel and adore our Lord. There’s something so sacred, reverent and beautiful about the silence, the stillness and the presence. Make this a regular visit, even if it’s just for mere minutes, with children so they can grow up experiencing the blessings of frequent adoration. So they can be face to face with Jesus.
Teach them to offer up something. During the offertory at mass, we can teach our children to place our intentions and offerings onto the host as it becomes exposed on the altar. We can also do this again upon receiving Jesus, as He is literally right there with us! This is something I also was not always aware of, and what a gift it is. This takes our active participation to a new place.
Share this fun video with them! This is one of the most stunning videos and there’s no words to explain it! This is what happens during the consecration and oh how stunning it is.
Show Jesus reverence during His exposure and in the tabernacle. There are so many ways to teach this and I believe that most of it can be taught by our actions. Our children pick up so much of what they see us do. From veiling to kneeling for receiving Jesus, or bowing anytime you pass the Tabernacle and so much more, there are many ways to teach our children reverence. In our home we receive Jesus by tongue on our knees, but my eight year old isn’t quite ready to do this and that’s okay too. We can encourage them along the way, as long as they understand that we are doing this to show Jesus just how special He is to us. Those moments of exposing Him, receiving Him or adoring Him are just so precious. We should honor those moments with reverent hearts that are still in the moment and ready to receive our Lord!
Let’s not sit on this Eucharistic Revival, but rather let’s raise up children who will crave the Eucharist so much that a revival isn’t even needed.
Other resources for teaching children about the mass and the eucharist: the mass study from Into the deep, adoration items for children from catholic sprouts, and many other great books from ascension press.
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