Every Parent Has Seen It

Keeping children engaged isn’t always easy.

When my own children were young, I saw the same thing every parent, catechist, Catholic school teacher, and DRE has seen. A child can be physically present at Mass while their mind is somewhere else. They’re fidgeting in the pew, looking around the church, whispering, or searching for something—anything—to capture their attention. And even when they’re watching what’s happening at the altar, they may not understand what they’re seeing or why it matters.

Incense rises from a thurible. The priest lifts a chalice. Chasubles change colors throughout the year. These are just a few of the many sacred vessels, vestments, furnishings, and other liturgical objects children encounter at Mass. Many adults recognize them by sight, even if they don’t know their names or purpose. For a child, they can be even more mysterious. Without that basic vocabulary, much of what happens can simply blend into the background.

Simply telling a child to “pay attention” usually isn’t enough. Children are far more likely to stay engaged when they understand something about what they’re seeing. Once the objects, actions, and words of the Mass begin to mean something to them, they have more reasons to look up, follow along, and ask questions. One Christmas, my son Matthew showed me just how powerful that kind of engagement can be.

One Moment That Stayed With Me

Never underestimate children.

Years ago, my family visited Dinosaur World in Plant City, Florida. Since it was Christmastime, the gift shop was beautifully decorated, and at its center stood a huge Christmas tree covered entirely with dinosaur ornaments.

My six-year-old son, Matthew, looked up at it and said, “Dad, that’s so cool!” I replied, “Yeah, buddy. Isn’t it neat how all the ornaments are dinosaurs?”

He looked at me as if I had completely missed the point. “No, Dad. What’s neat is that they’re organized by time period. The top of the tree is Triassic, the middle is early and late Jurassic, and the bottom is Cretaceous.”

I was stunned. I asked an employee, who confirmed that Matthew was exactly right. I had been admiring a tree full of dinosaur ornaments, but my six-year-old had been admiring the paleontology behind them. He wasn’t merely recognizing dinosaurs. He understood how they fit into millions of years of history—and he had noticed something his father had completely missed.

What Matthew Taught Me

He wasn’t studying. He was having fun.

Matthew hadn’t learned all of that by sitting through lectures about dinosaurs. Dinosaurs had certainly captured his imagination—but how did they capture it? They came alive through colorful cartoons, picture books, activity books, toys, games, coloring books, and museum exhibits created specifically for children. Those experiences invited him to explore, ask questions, and discover something new.

He wasn’t sitting there thinking, “I’m learning paleontology.” He was simply enjoying himself. Yet while he was having fun, he was hearing names, recognizing different dinosaurs, making connections, remembering details, and absorbing an astonishing amount of information. The way the material had been presented made him want to engage with it.

That’s what stayed with me. Children are capable of learning far more than we sometimes imagine, but the way information is presented matters enormously. When learning is colorful, interactive, playful, and engaging, curiosity takes over. Children often don’t even realize how much they’re learning because they’re too busy enjoying the experience.

That raised a question I couldn’t ignore: if children could learn the names of dozens of dinosaurs, what they ate, how large they were, when they lived, and countless other facts about them simply because the subject was presented in a way that captured their imagination, why couldn’t they learn the language of the Mass the same way?

Around Our Kitchen Table

So I made a game for Matthew and Zoe.

I started with something simple: a rough printable Memory Match game using illustrations of Catholic liturgical objects. It wasn’t polished and it wasn’t intended for publication. It was simply something I could play with my children at home. The purpose was very specific: I wanted them to recognize the objects they encountered at church, know what they were called, and understand what they were used for.

We played it around the kitchen table and talked about the objects as they appeared. Before long, words such as chalice, ciborium, thurible, and chasuble were no longer strange. Then, when we went to Mass, they saw those same objects in context. They could recognize them, name them, and understand something about their purpose.

Why the Cards Worked

Learning happened through play.

The cards weren’t trying to teach my children everything about the Mass. They were giving them a vocabulary—a foundation that helped them recognize what they encountered every Sunday. They weren’t sitting down to memorize lists of definitions; they were simply playing. Yet every time they turned over a card, recognized an illustration, repeated a word, or talked about an object, they were encountering that information again in a way that naturally held their attention.

It was the same principle I had seen with Matthew and dinosaurs: when learning feels like play, children often absorb far more than they realize. And once they know what they’re seeing at Mass, they have more reasons to look up, follow what’s happening, and become curious about what it all means.

I Shared Them With Other Families

The little kitchen-table game grew.

Learn About the Printed Card Game

I shared the printable cards online, expecting only a handful of families to use them. Instead, they began circulating among homeschoolers, catechists, teachers, and parishes. The Diocese of Oslo even requested permission to translate the cards into Norwegian for use in its Catholic schools.

What began as something I made for my own children eventually grew into a professionally printed two-volume Memory Match card game. Over the years, I’ve also heard from parents whose children became more attentive and engaged at Mass because they had begun recognizing the objects they were seeing. That was exactly the goal from the beginning: not memorization for its own sake, but knowledge that carries over into the child’s real experience at church.

Then I Wanted to Go Further

What if learning became more engaging?

The printed cards combined illustrations, conversation, repetition, and play. But I began wondering what would happen if I could engage even more of a child’s senses. A digital experience could combine colorful illustrations with real photographs, spoken pronunciation, movement, animation, sound, and interaction.

Every time a child touches or clicks a card, they hear its name spoken aloud, reinforcing the connection between the word and the image again and again. Cards flip, slide, move, and animate across the screen, helping capture attention while children match objects, spell words, tap the correct image, or search for a hidden pair. They’re seeing, hearing, touching, moving, remembering, and repeating, with each interaction strengthening the one before it.

The child isn’t thinking, “I’m studying liturgical vocabulary.” They’re trying to beat a score, finish a Memory Match game, spell a word, or choose the right picture before time runs out. They’re playing—but every click, sound, animation, match, and correct answer quietly reinforces the same vocabulary.

That kitchen-table idea eventually became Catholic Words & Games. The technology changed, but the goal didn’t: help children walk into Mass, recognize what they’re seeing, know what it’s called, understand something about its purpose, and become curious enough to learn more.

Where I Hope This Leads

My hope is simple.

I hope these games help children walk into Mass with greater curiosity, greater confidence, and a better understanding of what they’re seeing. I hope they recognize the chalice, the ciborium, the thurible, the chasuble, and the many other sacred objects they encounter at church—and that those familiar names become the beginning of deeper conversations about the Mass, our Catholic faith, and ultimately, about Jesus.

Catholic Words & Games gives parents, catechists, teachers, and DREs an engaging way to introduce and reinforce that vocabulary. And the learning doesn’t have to stop when the screen is turned off. Your subscription also includes printable activities, quizzes, crossword puzzles, word searches, classroom resources, and other hands-on materials built around the same collection of sacred objects. They’re designed to reinforce offline what children are learning through the digital games, allowing the same vocabulary to appear in different ways and different settings.

If Catholic Words & Games helps a child walk into Mass, recognize the sacred objects around them, and follow what’s happening at the altar with greater understanding and attention, then it has accomplished exactly what I hoped it would.

Thank you for taking the time to visit. I hope Catholic Words & Games becomes a useful—and enjoyable—part of the way you teach your children, students, or parish community. After all, this entire project began because one six-year-old taught his dad something he never forgot.