Jennifer Groft

There are a lot or Children’s Missals available, but I haven’t found one that was simple enough for my kids to follow without feeling like they were bogged down by a lot of reading. They would open a book and see a ton of text and decide they would just get through Mass by asking me every five minutes if we were almost done.

Out of frustration from not finding the kind of book I wanted for my children, I decided to try to put one together myself. I made these a couple years ago and have been road testing them ever since. I have worked out a few kinks, and I think I’ve caught all the typos. Over the course of those years I have had several people ask me, beg me, to publish this so they could have one. Finally I am ready to offer these to you.

The first one is “My Mass Book” and is for kids about 4-9 years old. This helped me to deal with the constant question, “Is Mass almost done?” by being able to show, with pictures and some very basic text exactly where we are in Mass and what is left before we are done. My 9 year old recently moved on to using a MagnifiKid magazine instead of this, when his reading skills were quick enough to follow the actual readings.

Then there is “My Very Little Mass Book” which is for pre-readers. It has fewer pages and bigger pictures, but still takes the child through the parts of the Mass one at a time. I offer you two options for getting one of these books into your child’s hands.

First, you can download the PDF and put it together yourself. It is formatted to be half sheets, so set your Adobe Acrobat to print two pages per sheet. If you truly love it, and have good use for it, please donate a few dollars for my time making this. If that is not possible, I still hope this Mass Book blesses your family.

The second option is for me to put it together for you. I will print it out on card stock, laminate it, and have it comb or spiral bound. This option is $15 per book with free shipping. I realize that sounds like a lot, but it is a time consuming process and your book will be very sturdy. Ours have held up to multiple hands holding them per Mass, being stepped on in the car, and even written on/wiped off and they are still going strong.

Click on the titles below to see or download the PDF files.
Donation for file access.
My Mass Book – For children age 4-9, text and pictures walking them through the parts of Mass.
My Very Little Mass Book – For toddlers and preschoolers, mostly pictures walking them through the parts of Mass.
Or purchase the books fully made, laminated, and comb bound in my Etsy Shop, Tools of Grace, for $10 each.

Printing Instructions:

1. Download the file you will be using (above), open in Adobe Acrobat.

2. Set Adobe Acrobat to “Multiple Pages” and set to 2 pages per sheet.

• Go to “File”, select “Print:
• Under “Page Sizing and Handling” select “Multiple”
• By “Pages per Sheet” select 2
• By “Page Order” select Horizontal

3. Make sure your printer settings are on “Best” quality.

4. Print the file out – I usually print it on cardstock.

5. Cut the pages and line them up in order, laminate them together. For “My Very Little Mass Book” I put an extra half sheet of cardstock in between the front and back pages to make it more sturdy.

6. Trim the binding edge of each page as close as you can to the paper.

7. Take it to a place like Staples or Office Max and have it comb or spiral bound, or use heavy duty staples or stitches to bind the edge.