Mary O’Donnell speaks to the coordinator of Children’s Adoration
Celebrating the birthday of Jesus this Christmas will have an extra special meaning for primary school children around the country who have been enjoying spending time with him in Eucharistic adoration in their local parishes.
There are currently around 7,000 children involved in adoration, with more and more schools throughout Ireland contacting the national coordinator of Children’s Adoration, Antoinette Moynihan about the programme, which is now in its third year.
From Co. Meath, the 44-year-old travels the country promoting ‘Children of the Eucharist’ and, during a visit to St Colmcille’s Primary School, in Claudy, Co. Derry, she spoke to The Irish Catholic about how she got involved in this apostolate.
Recalling her early faith formation while growing up in Kentstown, near Navan, where she lived with her parents and three brothers, Antoinette said that, like most Irish Catholic families, they “went to Mass every Sunday, believed in God and went to missions and novenas in surrounding parishes”.
This continued when she got married 22 years ago and later became a mother of two girls, as she and her husband, Peadar, were always aware of the importance of having God in their marriage and life.
The family experienced a deepening of their faith during a parish mission in 2006, which Antoinette said left them wanting “to know more about Jesus and how he could help us in this world we live in and, especially in Heaven”.
Conversion
Recalling that her mother had always prayed to Our Lady and so she did too, Antoinette felt that she didn’t know Jesus the way she knew Mary. Three years later, while on pilgrimage to Medjugorje, she experienced “a further conversion through the Sacred Heart of Jesus”.
Antoinette beamed as she described how Jesus “came straight in” when she opened the door of her heart to his heart, saying: “I simply told him that I didn’t know him as well as I knew his mother and, from this, he just showed me that he was around to help, not in a forceful way, but always gentle and loving. That is how Jesus is!”
As she grew more in her faith, Antoinette went to more prayer meetings, retreats and information days, and realised that this was “a treasure chest” she had never fully opened before.
“I was finding out so much more about my good friend Jesus and his plan for me here on Earth,” she said.
The family’s faith journey led to them getting involved in the 2012 International Eucharistic Congress (IEC) in Dublin, during which they helped coordinate a week of prayer and encouraged children to come closer to Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament.
They were working alongside a group of American priests, who told them about their work back home. By the end of an exhausting but fruitful week of working with around a thousand children during the IEC, Antoinette felt a strong desire to start a similar programme here in Ireland.
“I prayed about it over the summer and the Lord showed me, through prayer and Eucharistic adoration, what he wanted,” Antoinette said.
Then, in October 2012, ‘Children of the Eucharist’ began in Ireland, with Antoinette starting off with four schools in her area and then going on to visit many schools nationwide last year.
Having presented the Eucharistic adoration programme to around 7,000 children, Antoinette says it is “a wonderful privilege to bring these children to Jesus and explain to them the great love of God for us all, and the mission he has for each of us, if we just listen to him”.
She finds the children are very open to the programme and that people from the various localities are keen to get involved, along with the priest and school, to help the apostolate grow.
Antoinette has now trained teams of volunteers to act as ‘Children of the Eucharist’ leaders in Derry, Tyrone, Donegal, Down, Cork, Galway, Tipperary, Limerick, Dublin, Meath and Westmeath.
She said she is grateful for the support of all those involved, especially John Howard of the National Eucharistic Adoration team, her spiritual director, Fr Laurence Joseph, and the many other priests who have helped her along the way.
“Our ultimate mission is to bring our very young and not so young to the real presence of Jesus in the Eucharist, and let each one encounter him in a most beautiful way and know the love of God,” Antoinette said.
Word of the programme’s success has spread outside Ireland as well, following Antoinette’s attendance at the Adoratzio Conference in St Maxine le Baume, the Shrine of St Mary Magdalene, in the south of France, and she has since had requests to send programme packs to America, Australia and Holland.
*Anyone interested in finding out more can contact Antoinette via email at: moynihan.antoinette@gmail.com