Weekly Mass Resources For Kids (When Attending Mass Isn’t Possible)

Well it’s happening, people. Churches all over the world are closing, and Mass is not possible for everyone in the near months because of precautions taken for the coronavirus. If your Masses have been canceled where you live, or if you can’t attend for another reason, your obligation is lifted. However, when Mass isn’t an option, especially long term, it becomes all the more important to send the message to your kids that even though you can’t attend Mass, Jesus is still a priority in your home. So here are some weekly Mass resources for kids that are good year round! 

I specialize in ideas for living the liturgical year at home, and right now, we may need to do a little extra at home if we need to avoid going out. It’s not ideal, but we got this! We will be strong and courageous! 

Upcoming Specific Sunday Mass Resources:

• August 9– Gospel Story: Jesus Walks On Water
• August 16– 20th Sunday of Ordinary Time

Ideas For What To Do When You Can’t Attend Mass

I asked the Catholic Icing community what ya’ll do when attending Mass isn’t possible, and this is what you said! (Not saying everyone needs to do all these things, again, your obligation is lifted, but these were suggestions from the community.) 

• Watch mass online (Follow along in a Mass book for kids) 
• Read the readings and Gospel that would be at Mass that week. You can find the weekly readings here by date, and also in Spanish!
• Take spiritual communion (Read about how to do this here and find a printable for kids below) 
• Send your angel to Mass! This is such a cool idea. See the coloring page and prayer about this below in this post.
• Listen to an online homily via podcast or YouTube
• Pray a rosary

When you read the weekly readings, I highly suggest that you pull your children’t bible off the shelf and read that version to your kids as well if that’s an option for you! You can find my favorite children’s bibles here.

How To Set Up Mass At Home

Heather has a super amazing video about how she sets up Mass for at home with her family, and it is really helpful and to the point. These are great and easy to implement ideas. I fully suggest watching this video. 

Spiritual Communion Printables For Kids

I now have a coloring page and a printable craft with the spiritual communion prayer for kids, and it is on a special sale while this whole crazy thing is going on. Yay! 

Best Weekly Mass Resources For Kids At Home

A Mass Book! Alright, a little shamless plug here, but if ya’ll don’t yet have a copy of my Picture Book Of The Mass Illustrated By The Masters, I highly recommend it. It’s easy for kids to follow, can keep them more engaged (especially during a virtual Mass experience) and has beautiful artwork throughout that can be appreciated by any age level.

Send Your Angel To Mass

Did anyone ever tell you when you were a kid that you could send your guardian angel places? I can remember thinking that was awesome and doing it often as a kid! Well, you can totally send your angel to Mass, and Holy Heroes has a printable coloring page with a prayer for your kids, which is think is a truly amazing resource!

Free Printable Catholic Children’s Bulletin

I used to print these years ago when my kids were younger and they are an excellent resource! They’re totally free, but you have to have a Teachers Pay Teachers account to download them. Totally worth the sign up! They come with mazes, word puzzles and more for the weekly readings and Saint feast days. Here is the link to the Catholic Children’s Bulletins– new ones posted each week. She also has the Spanish version available! 

Holy Heroes Free Mass Prep Videos

Another free resource that is available every week, but may be especially handy if you can’t attend Mass. Here are is the Holy Heroes mass prep video that is updated weekly!

Weekly Mass Coloring Page For Kids! If you head over to the Holy Heroes weekly post, they also include a free Mass prep coloring page and quiz for each week. It’s a pretty awesome resource! 

Free Weekly Mass Printables! Ya’ll… Catholic Mom has some amazing free Mass resources for kids! For every single week, she has the gospel reading, a coloring page, a lesson plan, Mass worksheets, and a puzzle with a key. So. stinkin. amazing. You can find all of her upcoming free weekly Mass resources here. 

Find Activities Relating To The Gospel For The Week! The Catholic Toolbox does an absolytely amazing job of rounding up all the relevant Mass resources for each week for all 3 cycles. She makes the posts for every week and lists them ahead of time with the current dates in the titles. You can find all round-ups here, just find the correct date for this Sunday. Her lists are amazing, organized, and all inclusive! 

Read Your Kids A Children’s Sermon! Sermons 4 Kids provides a new sermon that is totally kid-friendly each week, and if you scroll to the bottom of the page, there are also links to matching coloring pages, crossword puzzles, and also a power point presentation!!! Isn’t that awesome?! All for free. 

Mass Scripture Memory Cards- I have a set of printable scripture cards for kids and it all comes from pieces of the Mass! Great for really knowing why we say all the things we do and to note that Catholics do memorize scripture. Print your set here! 

Temporarily Free Catholic Mass Resources During Coronavirus

Magnifikids actually made their online copy free for now! You can find it here. 

Tiny Saints is also offering free printable pages for kids right now, including Gospel reflection pages, and these things are cute!!!

If ya’ll know of more, leave links in the comments!!! 

Make Note Of The Liturgical Season And Color

Liturgical Spinning Wheel- It is definitely a great idea to talk to the kids about what the liturgical season is, and what color the priest would be wearing and what color the altar cloth would be if you were at Mass. Check out my printable liturgical season wheel for this. It’s great to keep track of what the current liturgical season and color is, especially when you can’t attend Mass to see it yourself.

Another option for switching out the liturgical colors at home is to craft a little cross with colored vestments to switch out each week. Kids love this! 

Make A Home Altar! If attending Mass isn’t going to be possible for awhile, it may be a good idea to put together a simple home altar. You can display your liturgical color, use it as a place to display relevant items, readings, or artwork for the week, and even provide it as a place for your family to pray. 

Teaching Religious Education At Home

If you can’t get to Mass, it’s not likely that you’re able to get our for RE either, and a lot of parishes are completely unable to offer in person classes at all this year. If you’re looking to teach Religious Education at home with your kids together, you may want to check out my easy notebooking option! For each lesson, you just read a 2 page spread of a picture book and complete an open ended notebooking page. The 130 page pack also includes a lot of alternative page options for pre-writers. At home Catholic RE couldn’t get easier than this!

I hope you found these resources useful for your family! You can find my post all about getting started living the liturgical year at home here. You are sure to find some more ideas for incorporating the faith while you have some extra time with your little ones. God bless!