Teaching Adoration to Children: Why Worship the Eucharist?

Why adore God in the Eucharist?

I had the pleasure of attending Fr. James Blount’s retreat in London, England over the weekend 9-11th June 2023. He is a dynamic priest and full of love for Jesus and Mary. I was so blessed!

What does the bible say about Adoration?

From ‘Children of Hope Adoration for Children’ website PowerPoint.

We must take our children to the Living Presence of Jesus in Adoration!

Don’t hold back!

Adoration is the same for children as it is for adults. Unless children/ adults spend

time with Jesus in this way, we will be restricted in our falling in love with Jesus and in experiencing His love for us. It’s a ‘no-brainer’ – as we say in England- we have to be with Him!

Listen to this 5-minute video about Adoration for children by Fr. Antoine Thomas!

At what age should a child start Adoration?

There is no set age! Children who are 3 years of age can only manage 3 minutes of sitting still. So only let them spend this amount of time with Jesus. As they get older, they will be able to spend longer chunks of time visiting the Lord.

taking kids to Adoration who are as young as 3 months! Remember even if they are sleeping Jesus is alive and pouring His love into their little hearts.

Walking into the chapel where Jesus is exposed: It’s like coming into His Home to have tea with Him. We greet and adore Him with a genuflection or by prostrating ourselves before Him…

When a child first starts going to Adoration (whatever their age), it is important to say: “Jesus is here in the Eucharist; He is alive; We are visiting Jesus; He wants to speak to you, to love you, to heal you and to make you happy”….or similar! When we adore Christ, we are not alone. We join in with the angels who are already adoring God continuously! There will be angels around every Eucharist.

Go once a week at least. Once they get to know Jesus here, they will understand and love the mass so much more.

What can a young child do next?

After genuflecting/prostrating themselves before God, there is no right or wrong way to continue… They can be silent or chat to God or can sing words of adoration to Jesus. A mixture might work best…

For younger children maybe it’s enough to ask them to tell Jesus that they love Him and then to listen to what Jesus says to them. Then maybe finish with a simple worship song (if there is no one else present!).

Afterwards, ask them if they could hear or feel anything from Jesus during their adoration. Maybe their skin felt tingly or they might have felt Jesus touch them – I have experienced my skin become tingly many times when I pray to/praise God. This is quite normal – though I understand it might sound odd to you if you have never experienced anything like this before. Jesus wants us to know that He is here, real and present! Our God is very real, so we should be expectant that He wants to communicate with us in some way. It was only once I attended a prayer group where people had expectant faith that I started to feel anything!

I find that the longer I stay in front of the Blessed Sacrament the more I feel His Presence. I might feel this as a deep peace or a joy. Sometimes I don’t feel much at all. It’s all a gift from God and has nothing to do with me. He knows what we all need, moment to moment.

Remember that children are often more open to God than we adults, so please don’t think they are lying if they say they heard Jesus speak inside (in their heart) or even audibly! The latter is more rare, but it does happen. It has happened to me once when I was 27 years of age and I was alone in a church. It is a tad difficult to describe this experience but I talk about it here.

What can older children do?

I think that saying a few set prayers to start off is a good idea. What do you think? I highly recommend this prayer which was given to Elizabeth Kindlemann by Jesus. She was a laywoman from Budapest in Hungary (1913-1985), and was the mother of 6 children. She was widowed at the age of 33 years and received locutions (words) from Jesus and Mary from 1961-1982 and was told by Jesus to write them down. Jesus also told her – “This prayer is an instrument to blind Satan and in so doing souls will not be influenced to sin.” Powerful stuff! This prayer has the Catholic church imprimatur and Nihil Obstat. 



I just love the lines: “May our ears listen to the silence together. May our glances profoundly penetrate each other”.

After praying a set prayer/prayers, they can just chat to God from their heart. Remind them to thank Him for things; to tell Him what’s bothering them; to forgive those they need to forgive; to ask for forgiveness; to read the bible or a holy book and to simply LISTEN for the voice of God through it all.

If they are in a group being led by an adult there may be a beautiful time of singing worship songs to the Lord…and, of course, if they are with family, everyone could sing a song together. It doesn’t need to be fancy. It’s all worship!

Chatting to Jesus

When we start to get to know someone, we often talk a lot. As we get to know someone – we say less- we just want to be in their company. It’s like this being with Jesus….it’s OK to say less and just to be- gazing at one another. We become like those who we keep company with- so by keeping company with Jesus we become just like Him!

What is God doing all this time?

He is gazing at us, loving us, healing us, speaking to us and more. Being with Jesus changes us. It’s nothing we have control over. We are His creatures whom He loves and wants to communicate with. What a loving God we have! Despite our sins, He still longs to draw us into His arms and speak words of love to us!



Adoration is like sunbathing. We are SON BATHING: being healed, being loved and being spoken to.