About

I started leading Children's Liturgy back in 2022, and I spent hours preparing each session, every week. That preparation is where this site started, and this page is the story of how it came to be.

What this is

This site is for what most parishes simply call Children's Liturgy: during Mass, the children are dismissed to a separate space, hear an age-appropriate version of the day's Scripture, and rejoin the assembly a little later.

How it works, and why it's permitted

Here is how it worked in our parish when I was leading. Families sat together in the main church for the opening rites. Before the First Reading, the priest called the children forward, handed the Lectionary for Masses with Children to the lay leader, and offered a blessing. In a separate room, the leader proclaimed the Scripture from the children's lectionary, led a short age-appropriate discussion, and guided a few simple intercessions. The children rejoined their families during the Offertory, before the Eucharistic Prayer began. That was one parish's rhythm rather than a universal rule; the shape varies from place to place, but it gives the ordinary shape of a dismissal.

A question I have heard more than once: doesn't the Church reserve the proclamation of the Gospel to a priest or deacon? Inside the main assembly at Mass, yes: the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM 59) reserves the Gospel to an ordained minister, and a children's dismissal does not change that. It is a distinct, separately authorized setting: once the children have been dismissed to their own gathering, a lay adult may proclaim the Scripture to them there. The Vatican's Directory for Masses with Children provides for separating the children for the Liturgy of the Word (DMC #17) and for lay adults to guide them (DMC #24), and in the United States the USCCB's Lectionary for Masses with Children confirms lay adults and teens as proper proclaimers for these sessions (LMC Introduction #23). You can read copies and summaries of the sources directly: the Vatican Directory for Masses with Children (PDF), the Diocese of Owensboro guidelines (PDF), and the UK Liturgy Office guidelines (PDF).

Resources I've found useful

All those hours of weekly preparation sent me looking for good material, and a few resources became ones I came back to again and again. These are the ones I have personally found useful, shared to help other leaders.

• Gospel Weeklies — Weekly Gospel Videos and Coloring Pages

  Weekly Gospel videos and printable coloring pages.

  Why I recommend it: I used it for the coloring pages specifically, but it is generally useful for other content too.

• Sermons4Kids

  Children's material for each Sunday of the calendar.

  Why I recommend it: Useful for all kinds of content: the reflections and conversation as much as the activities, coloring pages, and word searches.

• Loyola Press — Sunday Connection

  Age-appropriate reflections and discussion questions.

  Why I recommend it: A reliable source when I wanted reflections and questions for each Sunday.

How this site came to be

Somewhere in early 2024 I started to think the work I was redoing every week could be prepared once and shared. That was the idea for ChildrensLiturgy.org. Like a lot of side projects it took longer than I planned. I finally built and launched it about two years later, in the spring of 2026. The site is a small library of ready-to-run session plans, one for every Sunday and major feast of the three-year lectionary cycle: an opening prayer, a warm-up, the day's reading, an age-appropriate discussion, a recap, a Prayer of the Faithful, a closing prayer, and a word search. It is written for volunteer leaders rather than professional catechists: anyone who has been asked to lead and wants enough structure to run a confident 15-to-20-minute session without weeks of preparation. Parents, catechists, and parish coordinators are welcome to use or adapt any of it. And I encourage you to ask your priest, deacon, or parish catechetical coordinator for their guidance and input, too, if you are blessed with their support!

About the content

A note on how the guides are made: I draft them with the help of large language models and review them in large batches. The point of the AI assist is throughput, not novelty or a "race to add AI to ministry." With that help, I now cover every Sunday and major feast of the three-year cycle, which I could never write by hand alone. Please know that review depth varies: I have read some guides closely and only spot-checked others. If a guide reads off, please email me at hi@mjt.pub, and a correction will ship ASAP.

This project is not endorsed by or affiliated with the Catholic Church or any particular diocese.