Suggestions for a Successful
Children’s Holy Hour
Dear Clergy, Principals and Teachers!
Please take a few moments to view the Order of Service at the Basilica and some of the video trailers on the home page. Most importantly, please take every opportunity to encourage the children’s participation in this Holy Hour. It is not for them to merely observe but it is their day to. ‘call out to Jesus’ truly present in the Blessed Sacrament for their needs and desires.
It is my prayer that one day this Global Eucharistic Holy Hour for children will be acknowledged by the church and world, accepted as World Youth Day, only for our world’s children. Let’s work and pray together and see what we can do!
Here are some suggestions for you:
- Have a beautiful procession with Our Lady’s statue, including the white hankies for the children to wave high as they honor her as she processes into the church.
- Crown the statue of Our Lady
- A child in the procession can carry a basket with petitions written by the students, to be placed by the Altar or by the statue of Our Lady.
- Have the children participate in making a banner to carry in the procession ~ possibly one from each grade so no one will feel left out. Or if the Holy Hour includes more than one school, have each school make a banner to carry in the procession.
- Children dressed in costumes to represent the three Little Shepherds; other children wearing national costumes to represent the participation of children from other nations, or simply holding flags of nations; five children dressed to represent each of the five continents as they lead the World Mission Rosary for families and for priests.
- Children chosen to present questions to the Presider.- see Basilica program
Print out prayers for the children to practice
- Prayers of the Most Holy Rosary
- Prayers of the Angel of Peace of Fatima
- Prayer for the Canonization of Blessed Jacinta and Blessed Francisco
- Entrustment prayer to the Immaculate Heart of Mary
- Prayers of Benediction
- Please explain to the children the importance of this unique opportunity for them to pray for their families, for their parents, grandparents, brothers and sisters and sick family members. Because this year our Holy Father has announced the “Year of the Priest” special prayers for priests will also be added.
- How very blessed we are that our parish priest will be joining us.
- Suggest they listen well and look at those who are speaking to them.
- Children pray from your heart: When you are in Church you are in the Presence of the ‘Hidden Jesus’ hidden from your eyes, but present in your heart. Remind them to think about their loved ones and other children around the world who are praying with them, all the way from Africa, Oceania, Europe, Asia and all of the Americas.
- Please spread the word about the Annual Worldwide Children’s Eucharistic Holy Hour and check our website www.childrenoftheeucharist.org periodically for updates.
If you have any suggestions to offer please e-mail me @ connieschneider@earthlink.net
Visit our website at www.childrenoftheeucharist.org.
For your Information:
It was while Pope Benedict XV was formulating his homily to ask the children of the world to pray for the end of World War I in 1916, that God began to send the Angel of Peace to the three Little Shepherd children of Fatima to lead them in what can be called the First Children’s Holy Hour of Eucharistic Adoration.
The Angel taught the Little Shepherds how to give honor and love to “the Hidden Jesus” in the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar, and to beg forgiveness for those who do not “believe, adore, hope and love” the Most Blessed Trinity. He told them to pray in this way, and that the Hearts of Jesus and Mary would be attentive to the voice of their supplications.
The Angel of Peace taught them to, in union with the merits of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary:
"make of everything you can a sacrifice and offer it to God as an act of reparation for the sins by which He is offended, and in supplication for the conversion of sinners. In this way, you will draw peace upon your country.”
On May 5, 1917, Pope Benedict XV again expressed his desire that the world pray for peace, and to turn, as the wedding guests in Cana did, with loving trust to the Blessed Virgin Mary, to Whom he gave the title, “Queen of Peace” and “Mediatrix of All Graces.” He wrote:
“Since all graces which the Author of all good deigns to grant to the poor children of Adam, by a loving design of His Divine Providence, are dispensed through the hands of the most holy Virgin, we wish that the petition of Her most afflicted children, more than ever in this terrible hour, may turn with lively confidence to the august Mother of God… To Mary, then, who is the Mother of Mercy and omnipotent by grace, let loving and devout appeal go up from every corner of the earth – from noble temples and tiniest chapels, from royal palaces and mansions of the rich as from the poorest hut ... that Her most tender and benign solicitude may be moved and the peace we ask for be obtained for our agitated world.”
Just eight days later, on May 13, 1917, God sent the Blessed Virgin Mary, Our Lady of the Rosary, to the three little shepherd children in Fatima, to tell them that the war would soon end, and to teach them more about God’s Peace Plan for the world.
The Annual “Worldwide Children’s Eucharistic Holy Hour” follows this “way ”taught to the Little Shepherds, and spiritually unites the prayers and sacrifices of children around the globe as they gather in adoration before the Most Blessed Sacrament of the Altar to offer loving reparation to the Sacred Heart of Jesus and the Immaculate Heart of Mary, and to pray with Our Blessed Mother for their own families and for all the families of the world. Praying in this way, they trust that the “voice of their supplications will be heard” and God will send peace to their families and to the world.