How To Craft A Tabernacle; Making A Mass Kit For Catholic Kids

Find all of my Mass crafts and activities for kids here.

I’m continuing my series, showing you how to make a Mass kit for kids piece by piece. Today, I’m going to show you how to easily craft a sturdy tabernacle.

how to make a tabernacle

You can find the navigation page of how to make all the Mass kit pieces for kids here.

Supplies Needed To Craft Tabernacle:tabernacle craft supplies

  • Wooden box from craft store (big enough for your ciborium to fit in)
  • Wooden crosses from craft store (1 big and 1 small)
  • Funnel
  • Gold spray paint
  • Hot glue gun and sticks
  • Red felt
  • Optional: key and tassel
  • Optional: drill

Start by hot gluing all of your pieces together. The funnel goes upside down on top, the little cross goes on top of the funnel, and the big cross goes right on the front of the box. Note: the wooden box will stand on its end rather than opening like a chest.

tabernacle before painting

Next, spray paint it gold. I prepped all of my Mass kit pieces ahead of time so I could spray paint them all together. I spray painted the inside and outside of the tabernacle gold.

Optional: Make a key hole and key. I found a neat looking key on clearance at the craft store, and also spray painted it gold. I had an extra tassle from an old curtain that I tied on the key. I used my husband’s drill (that right, I used a power tool! Whoot!) and drilled a few holes in a row in the front of the tabernacle door, just big enough to stick our key into. The hole isn’t totally straight, but it’s there. You actually might want to drill your hold before spray painting.

spray painted tabernacle

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You can stick the key all the way through the hole and turn it on the inside of the box to pretend “lock” and “unlock” the tabernacle. This works because ours is a skeleton-style key.

tabernacle with key

When the paint dries, cut some red felt to fit the inside of your tabernacle, and hot glue it in place. Our ciborium fits in the tabernacle quite nicely!

diy tabernacle craft for catholic kids

We also got a little red candle holder from the Dollar Tree, and a battery operated tea light. This is our sacristy light to let us know when Jesus is in the tabernacle. We were turning ours on when our pretend hosts were in the tabernacle, but I found out that the atrium makes a big deal out of never lighting the sacristy light because this is only pretend, and Jesus is never really in there. I thought that was interesting.

craft a tabernacle mass kit for kids

Remember that this is just one piece in my larger Mass kit series.

Also, don’t forget a Mass book to aide your children in their pretend Mass! :-)

Picture Book of the Mass

Comments

  1. When you say “the atrium” you are referring to Catechesis of the Good Shepherd, right? I am just getting started learning about their method. Want to make sure I understand. Thanks.

    • Yes, that’s what I’m talking about. A good friend of mine is getting trained, so we talk about stuff sometimes.

      • Anyone who is given the chance to take the training in CGS SHOULD! It is a beautiful method of teaching children .Especially since you journey right along with them in their falling in love with Christ.

        • Totally agree! I would be getting trained if all of my extra time didn’t already get poured into Catholic Icing. Sure wish someone would start an atrium near me!