First Communion and Beyond (Paperback)

In this practical and uplifting spiritual guide for parents, Tommy and Katie McGrady―hosts of Family Mass Prep on the Hallow app―share short, inspiring, down-to-earth stories from their own family life to encourage you again and again as you walk with your child toward First Communion and into a lifelong, ever-deepening friendship with Jesus.

Winner of 2026 CMA Book Awards in Pastoral Ministry - Parish Life (Second Place) and Sacraments (Honorable Mention) from the Catholic Media Association.

Drawing from their personal experience of growing in faith alongside their daughter Rose, the McGradys offer wisdom on helping children (and parents!) understand the beauty of the Eucharist and the joy of meeting Christ in Holy Communion. Designed to complement the sacramental preparation program at your parish, this small but powerful book can become a spiritual companion and keepsake for years to come.

First Communion and Beyond is organized into five chapters, each one built around five practical tools or family habits for nurturing spiritual growth for you and for your child. Each habit leads you to a better understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches about the Eucharist:

1. Joining Our Stories to the Church’s Story: Discover how to weave Eucharistic awareness into the rhythm of daily life.
2. Learning from Scripture: Explore parent-friendly reflections on the gospels and key moments from the Mass that reveal how deeply Jesus desires to be with us in the Eucharist.
3. Thinking and Growing as Parents: Pause to reflect, pray, and deepen your own spiritual life as you guide your child’s.
4. Growing Together as Parents and Children: Use simple but meaningful conversations to help your family connect more deeply with each chapter’s theme.
5. Praying as a Family: End your time together with a heartfelt prayer from the McGradys―or one of your own.

With warmth, humor, and a deep love for the faith, the McGradys remind us that First Communion is about far more than a single day―it’s about nurturing a lifelong relationship with Jesus. As they explain, it’s about “helping our children take Jesus from the abstractions of what we believe about him and instead see him fully present in the everyday realities of their young lives. Preparing for First Communion ought to teach our children―and remind us―how to know and love Jesus in their hearts, in the scriptures, in the Eucharist, and in all the other people life brings their way.”

Katie Prejean McGrady is host of the Ave Explores podcast and The Katie McGrady Showon 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.