First Reconciliation and Beyond: A Family's Guide for Learning and Living Forgiveness

by Katie Prejean McGrady, Tommy McGrady

Overview

Tommy and Katie McGrady, hosts of Family Mass Prep on the Hallow app, offer a warm, relatable guide to walking with your child through First Reconciliation (and beyond!). Sharing their personal journey as they helped their daughter Rose prepare for her first confession, the McGradys offer stories of love, mistakes, healing, and the transformative power of forgiveness.

In First Reconciliation and Beyond, the McGradys invite you to reflect on the Christian call to forgiveness, both within our families and in our hearts. Through real-life experiences and rich biblical insights, they explore the great parables of the gospels that illustrate Catholic beliefs about sin, forgiveness, and healing. With humor, wisdom, and compassion, they show you how to make this sacrament a meaningful and joyful experience for the whole family.

The book is divided into five chapters, each offering practical steps to help you grow together as a family:

1. Joining Our Stories to the Church’s Story: Discover how to cultivate forgiveness and reconciliation in your home through real-life stories from the McGradys.
2. Learning from Scripture: Enjoy simple, parent-friendly reflections on the gospel stories and how they reveal God’s mercy.
3. Thinking and Growing as Parents: Take time for your own spiritual reflection and growth.
4. Growing Together as Adults and Children: Talk together about the lessons learned from the parables explored in step two and your own family stories.
5. Praying as a Family: Close each chapter with a prayer, either one from the McGradys or one you create together.
    

Preparing your child for First Reconciliation can feel like a daunting task, especially if you’re unfamiliar with the sacrament, haven’t been to confession in years, or aren’t Catholic. But this moment in your child’s faith journey offers a unique opportunity to rediscover the powerful practice of confession within the Sacrament of Reconciliation in your own life. It can help you let go of shame and guilt, experience God’s mercy in a new way, and confidently support and encourage your child in embracing this grace-filled practice for years to come.

This book goes alongside the parish program your family is using and is well suited for use in parish groups or by individual families at home. It gives you the information, confidence, and extra courage you may need to accompany your child at this special time, including a short appendix with simple tools to help you and your child make a good confession and experience all the graces of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

Let this compelling collection of true and relatable stories, practical wisdom, and spiritual guidance become a family treasure to which you return over and over and over again as parents and children together. 

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646804160
Publisher:	Ave Maria Press
Publication date:	08/22/2025
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	96
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Katie Prejean McGrady is host of the Ave Explores podcast and The Katie McGrady Show on Sirius XM’s The Catholic Channel. She is an international speaker, the author of Room 24: Adventures of a New Evangelist and Follow: Your Lifelong Adventure with Jesus, and the coauthor of Lent: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens, Advent and Christmas: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens, and First Reconciliation and Beyond: A Family's Guide for Learning and Living Forgiveness.

Prejean McGrady also serves as host of the Like a Mother podcast and cohost of Family Mass Prep on the Hallow app. She writes for several outlets, including Blessed is She, Our Sunday Visitor, and Aleteia, and contributes coverage on the Vatican and Church news to CNN. Prejean McGrady has spoken at the National Catholic Youth Conference, Steubenville Youth Conferences, and the Los Angeles Religious Education Congress, as well as in dioceses and parishes throughout the world.

Prejean McGrady earned a theology degree from the University of Dallas.

She lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with her husband Tommy and their children.

Tommy McGrady is a biology teacher at Lake Charles College Prep in Louisiana, cohost of Family Mass Prep on the Hallow app, and a parish coach for the Accompaniment Project with the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry. He is the author of Life Teen’s Unleashed: Men of Scripture and coauthor of Lent: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens, Advent and Christmas: One Day at a Time for Catholic Teens, and First Reconciliation and Beyond: A Family's Guide for Learning and Living Forgiveness.

He has spoken at a number of youth rallies, youth ministry trainings, and diocesan events throughout the country.

In 2016, McGrady earned a distinguished young alumni award from Eastern University, where he obtained a bachelor’s degree in biology in 2010. In 2023, he completed his master’s degree in educational administration. McGrady previously served as the coordinator of youth and young adult ministry in the Diocese of Scranton and as a campus minister and theology teacher at St. Louis Catholic High School in Lake Charles, Louisiana.

He lives in Lake Charles, Louisiana, with his wife Katie Prejean McGrady and their children.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“Tommy and Katie McGrady provide helpful, easy-to-read, and deeply insightful guidance for parents helping their children prepare for receiving God’s love and mercy in the Sacrament of Reconciliation. With their wonderful kids, the McGradys have impeccable credentials! Down-to-earth and filled with relatable real-life stories, First Reconciliation and Beyond can help inspire a renewed love in all of us for this beautiful sacrament!” —Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, Archbishop of New York

“What a gift this is for families! Thank you, McGradys, for tackling a subject that has too infrequently been written about in a digestible way for families, especially parents who may not have a healthy relationship with Confession themselves. This book is a wonderful help for parish and classroom sacramental formation programs because it centers the irreplaceable role of parents and family life in understanding the fruits of this sacrament—the graces of mercy, forgiveness, and reconciliation.

“Parents, if you are going to read one thing to help establish your home as a place of forgiveness and mercy, this is the book for you! It will prepare you and your children for not only their First Reconciliation but every reception of the sacrament thereafter.” —Katherine Bogner, teacher, catechist, and author of Through the Year with Jesus and All about Lent & Holy Week

“With unrivaled wit and authenticity, Tommy and Katie speak into the fears and misconceptions that keep too many Catholics away from God’s amazing sacrament of peace, joy, love, healing, and spiritual freedom! As a resource for themselves and their children, parents will find this book delightfully practical, personable, and prayerful.” —Sr. Mary Michael Fox, OP, author of Following God’s Pedagogy: Principles for Children’s Catechesis

“First Reconciliation and Beyond: A Family’s Guide for Learning and Living Forgiveness is a must for every family library. You will laugh, cry, nod your head, and then read many of these passages again and again. Learning what it means to be forgiven and to forgive is paramount for any person. The McGradys approach this topic with such love, care, compassion, and, when appropriate, lightheartedness. First Reconciliation isn’t just for the kids! It’s for each of us in the Church, and we hope that this book will become a staple for every family and person involved with sacramental prep and beyond.” —Jason and Rachel Bulman, national speakers and hosts of Meet the Bulmans