Children's Adoration Guidebook

Like many folks my age, I was never introduced to the rich traditions of the Catholic faith. The rosary, stations of the cross, adoration, novenas, the saints. All of these wonderful aspects of our faith were neglected, not taught, not shared for so many years.  Now that I am raising my own children and truly learning right along with my children about the amazingly rich history that is part and parcel of the Catholic faith, I sometimes struggle to find the ability to teach the kids comfortably about those things that I have had no experience with myself.

Enter the products from Holy Learning and you have a wonderful way to bridge this gap. Holy Learning sells a wonderful array of products to help you teach your children about the Catholic faith in not-too-boring, often hands-on fashion.  They have faith folders, faith rings, faith cards, a new section of faith games, and a children's adoration guide.

The Children's Adoration Guidebook contains a wealth of information and prayers to help your children (and their parents) better understand what adoration is meant to be and accomplish. It starts with a basic explanation of what Eucharistic Adoration is and what people typically do with their time at adoration.

Next up is a huge section containing many Catholic prayers including an examination of conscience, all of the mysteries of the rosary, the stations of the cross, the divine mercy chaplet, and special prayers devoted to various saints. A wonderful aspect of this section is that for rosary, all of the prayers are repeated on their own page for each set of mysteries. This means there is no flipping back and forth and makes it much easier for younger readers to follow. Both the rosary and chaplet sections have a coloring sheet that you can copy to allow your younger children to color in each bead as they progress through the prayers.

A reflections section follows the scripted prayers. In this section, you will find a collection of pages with "story starters" or suggestions on things for the child to focus on and write about during adoration. These lined pages cover a variety of subjects ranging from what I need help with, how I have been blessed,and how to pray for our secular and religious leaders. These pages can easily be copied for repeat use or laminated so that you can reflect back on the things you wrote earlier.

For the younger members of the family, there is a section with pictures of the many special items they might see in church or the adoration chapel.  These pictures can help your child better understand the sacredness of all the items they see in church each week. I'm sure I am not the only person who never knew what a tabernacle was or what the sanctuary lamp signified. With these pictures, you can guide your children to an understanding of what they see in church each week. Admittedly, there are no descriptions included so you'll have to add that part yourself.

The final sections of the guidebook include brief lives of a few common patron saints along with short bible passages of popular parables. These tend to be saints and parables that kids will recognize from readings at Mass so they should find them easy to understand.

This guidebook arrives to you as a large pdf file.  You may find it is best to have it printed somewhere other than home unless you own a laser printer.  Then it can easily be bound at an office supply store of put into a three ring binder. If you use a binder, you can also add in a pencil case to hold pencils, rosaries, and other items your children may use during adoration.

I shared this guidebook with several other mothers and they all liked what they saw. Some of their opinions are included in this review.  I do believe this is a wonderful resource to help your entire family grow in understanding the concept of Eucharistic Adoration.

If you are interested in some of the other products offered by Holy Learning, here is an earlier review I did of the Respect Life Faith Folder.  We've also used several other faith folders not only with our own children but also with our co-op and they have all been well received. If you would like to use any of these wonderful products with your children this year, use the code hitchings for 15% off your order. This code will be valid for two weeks from the date of this post.  If you have little ones preparing for their sacraments this year, you will find many wonderful hand-on resources to help them understand the sacraments.

I received this guidebook in exchange for an honest review.