It all started when a friend asked me about how to learn and teach her kids Latin at home. After going through a few options, I suggested just reading through the readings for that Sunday. It seemed simple to me, after 20 years attending a Latin Mass plus an ongoing interest in the Latin language even before that, but this was quite daunting to a new person.
I had thought about a weekly Mass preparation post for those attending the Traditional Latin Mass many times over the years. Finding the Jerome Nadal illustrations was a great step forward. Then on the 10th November this year, I decided to livestream a video, to save the more fiddly time taken to edit a pre-recorded video. I’ve managed to keep this up for four weeks now and it has felt like a good fit between what I want to do for my family and what might help other people.
This is how it works. I prepare a post at kidschant.com with the relevant illustration plus the text of the Gospel in Latin (with accents) and English. Then I put together a handwriting sheet, going through a short passage, aiming at something for my 8 year old to do. Recently I’ve started adding in a Crossword Puzzle taking words from the Latin text. Then on Tuesday morning, I’m ready to livestream a quick read through on YouTube with a link in the description to the prepared page.
I’m aiming for Tuesdays 7am Sydney time, which works out as Monday noon for Los Angeles and Monday 8pm for London at the moment. See World Time Buddy for a more accurate translation into your timezone.
Preparing for the upcoming Sunday readings is an old idea. There are things like printable Catholic kids bulletins available for youngsters, but only for the Ordinary Form of the Mass. Catering for the Extraordinary Form should be much easier as we only have one year’s worth of readings rather than the three of the Ordinary Form.
Holy Heroes offers some great resources for preparing kids for the Sunday Mass readings, but up until now they have only catered for the Ordinary Form readings. This year I was excited to read that their Advent Adventure will include videos covering the Gospel readings of the 1962 Lectionary. I enjoyed the first one, presenting Luke’s description of the Second Coming in Lego and I’m looking forward to seeing the next one. They don’t go into the Latin at all, but their English translation sounds like the usual Challoner text you find in most old Missals. You can sign up and check out Holy Heroes’ videos at AdventAdventure.com.
