Teaching your Children to Genuflect

From the time they are a year old and eager to mock me, I encourage my children to genuflect before the altar.  They normally start out not completely facing Jesus, but as they get older, they do look for the tabernacle before genuflecting.  Now that my younger ones have older children to follow, it is so wonderful to watch from the pew when an older child is helping the younger one genuflect.  Genuflecting helps them to know that they are in the holy presence of God.  Although they do tend to forget this 5 minutes or less after genuflecting, it's a great start.

Today, I came across the story of a saintly young girl, Alexia Gonzalez-Barros in a book called Saintly Youth of Modern Times by Joan Carroll Cruz.  In her story, her mother watches Alexia genuflecting reverently and when asked about it, she tells her that, "I tell him things Mommy!  Like I say, 'Jesus, may I always do what You want!'" I am very inspired by this young girls little prayer.  I plan to teach my children this prayer as they genuflect.