I teach 8th grade Catechism and Confirmation preparation. This is my third year with 12 children in each class, so I have had 36 students. The one thing they have in common: each student is/was all bored by attending mass.
When asked WHY they are bored, they give many reasons: it’s routine, always the same, the music is bad/weird, etc.
It is up to us as adults/parents/teachers to drill down and keeping asking WHY until we get to the real cause of their boredom. What I have found (my experience, to each his own) is that these children get virtually no catechism or faith instruction at home. Their parents don’t know most of the basics I teach the children. It’s not that they are against anything–they just didn’t get it themselves. Unfortunately, it is ignorance of faith that is being passed along from one generation to the next. At least some of them attend Mass on Sundays pretty regularly, and also spend more than just two hours a week out of 168 in prayer and service and faithful Catholic living in the Gospel.
My class is at 9:00 on Sunday mornings. After an opening prayer, we read and study that week’s readings. By study I mean that I take those readings ahead to of time and re-write them so that these children can understand them and see how the message can apply to daily life. And then I open it up to them to discuss it in a small group circle. When I tried this my first year, it took several classes for it to catch on. Then one day I stopped–and they nearly revolted! They wanted to hear and learn and understand. It was very rewarding to know that the Holy Spirit landed in these kids’ hearts, and that I helped.
So I have pulled that same routine with each year’s class; in fact, it was this past week where I did it again. Revolution! “You can’t stop now, we’re starting to get this!” and similar remarks. I’ve learned to expect a lot from them, and once THEY get that, things change.
So for me, it’s all about giving them tools to understand the Mass (and the Sacraments). I only spoke about the liturgy here, but we also talk about sin and Communion and love. It is
very rewarding and the highlight of my week, along with Mass.
Exactly! The more we realize what Mass is, the more it draws us in!
When they are in second grade, sometimes just the Gospel is enough. As for the 8th graders, a priest taught me a “trick” to studying the readings, BTW. He said to first, read the response for the responsorial psalm, because it is as if the people are saying, ‘oh, oh, we know how this first reading foreshadows the Gospel! Wow!!’. (Also read the Gospel acclamation, if it is printed in your missal.) The “this is what is coming” line is a help. Then read the Gospel, then read the 1st reading and the responsorial psalm, and the connection will make sense. Those are always chosen to go together. The 2nd reading (or the 1st reading at daily Mass) is not necessarily chosen to go with the Gospel, so read that last. If you read them all with a prayerful (listening) manner, he said the Holy Spirit will make connections for you, though.
It helps to give them the overall layout of the Mass, a bit each week, as in “OK, this part means this, let’s really watch for that this week.” First we renounce our sins–which makes us so thankful, of course we just have to sing to glorify God. (When the penitential rite is replaced by a sprinkling of holy water reminding us of our baptism, explain that!)
Then we listen and are drawn in by the Word of God, which is Christ himself. It is not just someone tell a story, not even just God telling us stories, but God drawing us into Himself. The homily is the priest breaking down what God is saying to us, so we can understand better and God’s Word gets into us better. God’s Word is not a what. God’s Word is a who. God’s Word is Jesus Christ, brought into us by the power of the Holy Spirit.
Then we are offered as a single offering with Jesus, our whole selves hidden as it were in his perfect sacrifice of Himself being offered on the altar. It is very important to recognize that what is on the altar is our whole life, rolled up in the life of Christ, in his perfect saving sacrifice, being offered to God. In baptism, we died to sin; we are hidden in his death and resurrection. When the priest offers Mass, Christ offers himself, and so he offers us, ALL of each of us who are baptized! If you think about it, that is your whole life up there, tied up with my life and his life and her life and their life, one life in Jesus, laid out as an offering to God. All the bad parts are covered up by Jesus, because we let go of the bad stuff so that he could make us into a perfect offering. If you think about it,
how can that be boring? As Archbishop Sample said, only if you don’t know what is happening, you don’t believe it, or if you forget.
To listen is to worship, to offer is to worship, and it is an offering Jesus is making to God, Jesus offering himself, and because we are in him,
he is offering us, too. Then God gives us the life of Christ and sustains us as one Body in Holy Communion. Jesus gives us his whole self, with nothing held back, so that you can go to Heaven, so I can go to Heaven, and that guy, and that woman, those kids, all of us learning to love each other perfectly and love God perfectly and to be so happy together with God, we can’t even imagine it, because he made each of us like himself, with all of our annoying bits and selfish bits washed away. In Holy Communion, Our Lord is more “there” for us than anyone else can ever possibly be. He holds
nothing back,
so that we can be made like Him! That is what Mass is about.
). When that “something” hits us, we write it down in our journal and can even use it as a way to better ourselves during the week.