Breakfast With God is a flexible children’s faith formation program that creatively wraps prayer, song, a children’s story and craft, in a Gospel message.
This Breakfast With God Guide offers easy, step-by-step instructions for planning a Breakfast with God lesson in your home, classroom, parish or virtually on ZOOM. Each downloadable Guide focuses on a specific Gospel and Gospel theme.
The selected content and reflections have been produced by Catholic preschool teacher, Anne Krane and Fr. Quang Tran, S.J., hosts of the Breakfast With God Sunday morning program on ZOOM. This shared resource is a partnership between the Church in the 21st Century Center and the Roche Center for Catholic Education at Boston College.
WHY IT WORKS
EFFICIENT
Breakfast With God is turnkey and is perfect for the home, classroom, or parish. The virtual or in-person program can be administered in 30 minutes, or you can pick and choose segments from the overall programming model to fit your needs. (See pages 5 & 6)
HIGH-QUALITY
Breakfast With God is high-quality, interactive, faith-sharing programming for the whole family. Breakfast With God gives children vocabulary, accurate information about Catholicism and the Gospel message using language that is comfortable for them, and gives parents and teachers an example of faithsharing that they can emulate at home or in the classroom.
ACCESSIBLE
Breakfast With God provides an opportunity for children and families to interact. Children actively participate in answering questions, sharing prayer intentions and watching one another learn and make connections. Parents are given unintimidating catechesis that will make it more possible to continue the conversation with their children after the program is over.
COMMUNITY-ORIENTED
One of the central tenets of the Catholic faith is the belief that we are formed by communion and in community with one another. Breakfast With God connects families and classrooms searching for a space to reflect on their faith.
THE MODEL
WELCOME (2 minutes)
The host/s introduce themselves and welcome all participants to Breakfast With God.
OPENING SONG/PRAYER (1 minute)
Start with a “theme song” prayer that centers and refocuses participants on the reason to celebrate God.
GOSPEL PREVIEW (1 minute)
This is a sentence or two to prepare children for the Gospel message.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION (1 minute)
Sing a children’s Hallelujah that involves movement and helps children recenter themselves and get ready to hear the Good News.
GOSPEL (2 minutes)
Find a children’s version of the Gospel, but if there is not an appropriate children’s version available, read it directly from the scriptures.
GOSPEL REFLECTION (2–3 minutes)
Reflect on the Gospel in a way that is geared to children.
CHILDREN’S BOOK (2–3 minutes)
Read one short children’s book that connects with the Gospel.
LITERARY CONNECTION (2 minutes)
A simple sentence or two describing how the characters or themes in the book were similar to the messages given to us by Jesus in the Gospel.
CRAFT (1–2 minutes)
A simple craft instruction using things that would be easily found in a home or a classroom.
PRAYER INTENTION (5 minutes)
Have the children get their prayer hands ready, and ask them to share their prayer intentions. After each intention, we “flap” the prayers out into the world with our hands clasped and flapping our elbows up and down.
THE MODEL cont.
OUR FATHER (1 minute)
Close prayer time with the prayer that Jesus taught us.
SIGN OF PEACE (1
minute)
Send peace and love to one another by creating gestures that communicate the message of that week.
ANNOUNCEMENTS (1
minute)
This is an opportunity to announce other events going on in your parish, school, or community.
FINAL BLESSING (1 minute)
Say a prayer to close out your time together. Use a prayer that involves gestures and movement to help make the final blessing memorable.
CLOSING SONG (1 minute)
Children love a sending forth that is upbeat and leaves them feeling energized and ready to move.
GOSPEL THEME: HOPE
Hope is the cornerstone of our faith, and the thing that gets us through difficult or dark times. As we look forward to everlasting life with Jesus in the resurrection, we also hold hope for our community, our friends and our families.
OPENING SONG/PRAYER: JOHNNY APPLESEED
Words
and Music
By Kim Gannon and Walter Kent
GOSPEL PREVIEW
Sometimes, the world can seem like a hard place and nothing seems to be the way we want it to be. In times like these, it’s hard to look forward to the future, and have hope that things will get better When Coronavirus started, people had to stay inside and wear masks. That made people feel really nervous. It felt like things might never get better But bad things don’t last forever, and that we have to have hope that things will get better. In today’s Gospel, we hear about two men who were blind. They had hope that Jesus would heal them, and they would see again. Even though people tried to hush them up, they continued to hope that things would get better.
GOSPEL ACCLAMATION:
Hallelujah- Your Word O Lord, be in my mind, and on my lips and in my heart.
GOSPEL:
Matthew
20:29, 32-34 Jesus Heals Two Blind Men
As they were leaving Jericho, a huge crowd followed. Suddenly they came upon two blind men sitting alongside the road. When they heard it was Jesus passing, they cried out, “Master, have mercy on us! Mercy, Son of David!”
The crowd tried to hush them up, but they got all the louder, crying, “Master, have mercy on us! Mercy, Son of David!” Jesus stopped and called over, “What do you want from me?”
They said, “Master, we want our eyes opened. We want to see!” Deeply moved, Jesus touched their eyes. They had their sight back that very instant, and joined the procession.
Other Gospels:
• John 4:13-14
• Mark 4:30-34
• Luke 18:35-43
• John 5:6
• Mark 9:23
• John 14:24
• Matthew 11:28
• John 8:2
• Matthew 8:23-27
• Mark 1:40-45
GOSPEL REFLECTION:
I want to ask you all, what is something that you are hoping for? For you kids, is it a special gift for your birthday? Maybe that the teacher won’t give homework, or that you and your friends will get a longer recess?
For adults, what are you hoping for? Maybe that work eases up a bit, or that your boss might give you a promotion? Maybe you are hoping that your children will be on their super best behavior? Hope is a wonderful thing, because it lets us think about the good things that might be coming our way. Sometimes hoping and thinking about these things can help lift us out of less fun times. If we are looking forward to good things, it makes it a little easier to work through harder times. For example,
if we are looking forward to a birthday party on the weekend, it can help us get through the more unfun parts of the week.
Jesus is always inspiring us to hope. Hope for a closer relationship with Him; Hope for a more loving heart; hope for joy in the resurrection. Sometimes when things in life get more challenging, it can bring us so much joy to know that God is with us, and that we have so much to hope for.
So next time, when you or someone you know is feeling really sad, alone, or afraid, take some time and think and share about the things we have to hope for with Jesus. We believe that Jesus is always taking care of us and leading us towards a better future, and that information can be a light through the dark times. We believe in everlasting life with Jesus, and that can bring us joy when we are feeling down.
CHILDREN’S BOOK: “INSIDE OUTSIDE”
By LeUyen Pham
Literary Connection:
I chose this story because it talks about what our lives were like when Coronavirus first started. During the pandemic, I was feeling really down. It felt like things would never be “normal” again, and it made me feel really sad and scared. It reminded me of how the two blind men must have felt in our story about Jesus today. When they were feeling sad, they cried out to Jesus for help, and he helped them see!
The book Inside Outside also shows us what to do when we are feeling sad or scared, we look to the goodness and the light: we look to Jesus! The story shows us all of the hardwork and little moments that moved us forward during the pandemic, the family events, the special times together, the way communities worked together, the hardworking people, these smaller moments of light show us that darkness isn’t everywhere, and that gives us hope. We have so much to hope when we look for Jesus in our lives.
Other Books:
• “If You Plant a Seed”- Kadir Nelson
• “The Red Tree”- Shaun Tan
• “And Then It Is Spring”- Julie Fogliano
• “How To Catch a Star”- Oliver Jeffers
• “The Heart and the Bottle”- Oliver Jeffers
• “Jack’s Worry”- Sam Zuppardi
• “Because Of An Acorn”- Adam and Lola Schaefer
• “Swimmy”- Leo Leoni
THE CRAFT:
Today we are going to remember those moments of hope and light as we draw our own self portrait! BUT we are going to draw ourselves wearing a mask! Take a white piece of paper and crayons, markerswhatever you like to draw with!
Fold the bottom side of the paper up, just about a third or the way up the page. Then begin your drawing, making sure that you draw your mask right under the folded up line. Once you are finished drawing this picture, you can unfold your paper, and redraw the bottom half of your face to show the big smile hiding under your mask.
You can use this fun foldable portrait to remind yourself that there is always something to be hopeful about even when things get rough. Just look to Jesus and keep on hoping!
PRAYER INTENTIONS
As we get our prayer hands together, pray for anyone who is feeling unwelcome, especially people in new jobs and new schools. Let’s flap our kindest and loving thoughts to them out into the world.
(Have the children share their own prayer intentions. For each prayer intention shared, have the children put their prayer hands together and then flap them up and down and then send them off to God. If you are doing the program through Zoom, children and parents can enter their prayer intentions on chat.)
OUR FATHER
Our Father, Who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy Name. Thy Kingdom come. Thy Will be done, on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread. And forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. And lead us not into temptation, but deliver us from evil. Amen.
SIGN OF PEACE
Send a peace sign, or a sign language I love you, give a welcoming wave, whatever gesture might serve as a reminder of the mission of the week.
FINAL BLESSING
Prayer of Saint Patrick
God we love you, we know you love us, Christ beside me, Christ before me, Christ behind me, Christ within me. Christ beneath me, Christ above me, Amen.
(Have the children repeat each line of the prayer.)
