Faith that 'Sticks': Teaching Our Children to Love the Mass

Christine Hanus, a long-time catechist, gives parents concrete ways to prepare for and coach their young children through the Mass. 

Picture a future in which your daughter is thirty years old and living down the street from you with her husband and two young children. What is her relationship with God like? Are she and her husband raising their children in the faith? 

Picture your son grown into a young man and making decisions about his employment, dating, and courtship. Is he guided by the will of his Heavenly Father? Does he believe God loves him and does he desire heaven above all things?  

In my last article, I urged parents to prepare themselves and their children for Mass. Helping your kids understand the Mass is one of the most powerful ways you can aid them in ongoing conversion to Christ. The Mass is not about tradition and routine for its own sake. The Mass is the unshakable foundation that allows us to know who God is and who we are in relation to him. It is meant to help us fall in love with Christ and recognize ourselves as his bride. (Listen or read more about this beautiful reality from Dr. Edward Sri.)  

Learning to love the Mass isn’t all about head knowledge either. It is about receiving Communion in a worthy manner and following God’s commands, given to us for our good, all week. That means it ought to be paired regularly with the Sacrament of Reconciliation, for both parents and children! 

When our children are older, they may still walk away from their faith, but there is so much we can do to help the faith of their childhood to “stick.” 

4 Ways You Can Help Your Children Understand More About the Mass 

• Read A Missal for Toddlers or My First Interactive Mass Book with your child at home and bring the books with you to Mass, so the children can follow along. When your children learn a little bit about what is happening at the Mass, they will be curious to watch it and participate in it.   

• Our children quickly learn about the things that are most meaningful to us because we talk about the subject and are enthusiastic about it. Read this easy-to-understand explanation to learn more about the Mass, and try to engage more with your faith. Pray every day. Ask the Holy Spirit to help you be more convinced of the goodness of God and more excited about your faith. Then you can simply chat with your child about God and the Mass regularly. (As with anything, our children will not understand everything we are saying and what it means at first, but you are planting seeds that will grow if you, as a parent, remain faithful to God and your families.) 

• During the Mass, try quietly whispering brief reminders into your child’s ear, such as “Oh, look, the procession is coming down the aisle now. There is Father Ryan. He is the priest who will help us worship God today.” Or later in the Mass, “Hear them ringing the bells? Look in your book … remember what that means?” Or say, “I love  you so much and so does God. I am so glad to be here at Mass with you.”  

• Don’t be late for Mass, and sit where your children can see what is happening. I highly suggest sitting near the front of the church, but if you can’t or don’t want to, get as close as possible and sit with your child on the aisle side. Then they can see the opening procession and periodically have a good view of the priest celebrating Mass. 

Here is a sample of what you might say to a toddler or a preschooler as you are driving together to Mass: “We are going to worship God today! God made us and loves us and helps us to love each other. We should thank Him. It is a very serious and wonderful thing to go to Mass. It is more important than anything else we could do.”  

Never Stop Teaching Your Kids by Word and Example 

Some parents start out strong in the faith when their kids are small, because it is generally easier at this stage of family life to set priorities. As our children grow and become less tractable or worldly ideals have us running a rat race, we can become weary. We can be tempted to let kids sleep in or compete in a sports event on Sundays. This is tragic! Find the support and resources you need — both natural and supernatural — and continue to lead your family toward heaven. As Saint Paul exhorted the earliest Christians, “Let us not grow tired of doing good, for in due time we shall reap our harvest, if we do not give up” (Galatians 6:9). 

If you bring your family to Mass faithfully and receive Communion in a state of grace, you are already doing a wonderful thing! The more you learn and grow and the more you pass on the faith to your children, the more likely they will experience conversion to Christ as a child, and the more likely that conversion will “stick.” 

[When it comes to practical application of what to bring to Mass to keep little children from crawling under the pew, I have a few thoughts to share in my next article at Catholic Mom.] 

Share your thoughts with the Catholic Mom community! You'll find the comment box below the author's bio and list of recommended articles.

Copyright 2026 Christine Hanus
Images: Canva