Just in time for Pentecost, Denverite author Claudia Cangilla McAdam, who was born on Pentecost Sunday, has released a new children’s book called The Day God’s Helper Came, focusing on the power of having a relationship with the Holy Spirit.
With a special love for the Holy Spirit, McAdams has… If you’re a parent struggling to find the words to explain the significance of Pentecost to your children, this book is a great resource to teach children about this pillar of our faith.
Denver Catholic: How is Pentecost an opportunity to encourage children to grow deeper in faith?
Claudia Cangilla McAdam: Too often, people think of the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit (wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord) as being present only in those who have been confirmed. While the Sacrament of Confirmation strengthens and seals those gifts, St. Thomas Aquinas tells us that these traits are infused into every Christian at baptism. That means that parents can use Pentecost as a stepping-off point to encourage their children, even those who have yet to be confirmed, to explore and utilize these gifts.
Since love lights the fire at Pentecost, and since it is charity that is at the root of the Corporal Works of Mercy, parents can help their children grow deeper in faith by joining together as a family to do one or more of these works: feed the hungry, give drink to the thirsty, clothe the naked, shelter the homeless, visit the sick, visit the imprisoned, and bury the dead.
Parents may find an increase in their own faith lives, and their children will likely follow suit. After all, kids are Pentecost people, too!
Denver Catholic: What is the toughest thing for children to understand about the Holy Spirit, and how do you explain that in terms they understand?
Claudia Cangilla McAdam: Probably the same thing that adults struggle to understand: how can this invisible Third Person of the Holy Trinity be active in their lives?
But like Jesus told Nicodemus in the third chapter of St. John’s Gospel, we can compare the Holy Spirit to the wind. We can’t see it, but we feel it and can witness to what it accomplishes.
Denver Catholic: What inspired you to write The Day God’s Helper Came, and what is the premise?
Claudia Cangilla McAdam: This book is the third in a series of sacrament-related picture books for kids I have penned for Ascension Press. All of them are illustrated by award-winner Gina Capaldi, whose artwork truly brings the stories to life.
As in my previous books, The Real Presence (about the Eucharist) and A Miracle for Micah (about Reconciliation), I take fictional characters about the same age of the kids in my intended audience and place them in the Holy Land at the time of Jesus. My books invite young readers to step into the sandals of these imagined characters. When they see themselves in the story, they can join with the main characters in exploring the virtues, building character, and deepening faith.
In The Day God’s Helper Came, Hannah, a young follower of Jesus, is mocked and ridiculed for her belief in Him. In the wake of his crucifixion, she is too frightened and intimidated to speak to her friends about the Lord. When she is present in the Upper Room praying with the Virgin Mary and others on Pentecost, she experiences the descent of the Holy Spirit and is filled with the understanding, wisdom, and courage necessary for turning the hard hearts of her friends to the Lord.
Denver Catholic: How can parents help their children understand who the Holy Spirit is?
Claudia Cangilla McAdam: We can take kids outdoors and have them watch a sailboat or a kite and see how the invisible power of the wind fills the sails, guiding boat and kite. That is the action of the Holy Spirit in our lives, holding us up, giving us direction, and propelling us forward in faith.
At a recent Confirmation and Holy Communion Mass, Archbishop Aquila spoke to the children about how they didn’t know love until their parents showered it upon them. The Holy Spirit is love, and kids can depend on Him as surely as they can on the love they feel from their parents.
Denver Catholic: Do you have any plans for more books?
Claudia Cangilla McAdam: Always! Through the grace of God, 2024 has been a very blessed year for me with the release two months ago of the picture book St. Paul’s Nephew to the Rescue (Our Sunday Visitor) and the publication last month of Mother Cabrini: A Heart for the World (commissioned by Angel Studios to accompany their major motion picture, Cabrini, and published by Sophia Institute Press).
August will see the publication of my chapter book, The Miracle of the August Snow (Our Sunday Visitor), about the legend of a miraculous snowfall in Rome in August in the year 358 following a dream shared by three separate people in which the Blessed Mother instructs them to build a church in her honor on a site that will be covered with snow in the morning. The church that was built is the Basilica of Santa Maria Maggiore (also referred to as Our Lady of the Snows). My story focuses on fictional twin boys who are intimately associated with the miraculous occurrence.
And next year, Ascension Press will publish my fourth sacrament-related picture book, this one about baptism.
More information, including free Discussion and Activities Guides for my books, can be found at www.ClaudiaMcAdam.com.
Purchase The Day God’s Helper Came: ascensionpress.com/helper