Interrupting the priest

  • Thread starter Thread starter somecanadian
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
CLOW works well with children that are dropped off at church and their parents do not stay for Mass. Some older students come to CLOW that have disabilities. Children that attend CLOW like being able to participate by adding their own intentions during prayer time. If you do not want your child to participate, then that is fine. Please allow others to participate if they desire to do so.
 
CLOW is not universal, it is not mandated and the priest decides if it will happen.

I, for one, find it cringe worthy and would applaud your pastor for eliminating it.
 
Children’s liturgies aren’t something I’ve ever worked with and I don’t have kids so they’re not something I’ve ever relied on. But I don’t understand the hatred for this practice.

I guess these days I’m feeling too bad over a family in my parish. I haven’t seen them for a while and wondered what happened to them so I asked one of their friends. The family consists of a Catholic mom, Protestant dad, and three kids. The family attended Mass every week until fairly recently. Now they go to dad’s church. It got to be too hard to bring the kids to Mass and try to make them sit quietly (or face the disapproval of the people around them). The kids were bored and squirmy and of course we can’t have that in church. So now they go to the Protestant church where kids are welcome and there are lots of activities, either for the whole family or just for the kids. The basic attitude I got was “it’s too bad, but you can’t blame them. We don’t have anything to offer the kids.”

Even if you don’t want a separate liturgy for your own children, can’t you open your hearts just a bit to other families who may be desperate for some support?
 
It’s not just the kids that drive people away. I’ve seen numerous families leave our parish and it’s always for the same reason: They don’t feel spiritually fed.

Which tells me we are missing out HUGELY by not offering people ways to learn and grow in the faith. As it stands we rely entirely on the Eucharist but… I just don’t think it’s enough.

PS: I think when we focus on how to please people WITHIN Mass we’re missing the point. It’s everything that happens OUTSIDE the Mass that will keep or drive people out.
 
Last edited:
Alright so offer them some pictures of Jesus vaguely based on that particular day’s gospel to go downstairs and color? I tell you this is all we did and maybe some college-aged layperson hoping to get a job with the Archdiocese who neither knew the faith well nor lived it out as a priest or nun would tried to explain things to us as best they could. The idea that kids have to go off and do something else to keep them occupied is as ridiculous as a parent thinking that in order to get some time to themselves it’s a good idea to put their kids in front of a screen to watch some talking purple dinosaur. Were not all of our ancestors formed in the faith sitting next to their families in the pew? If some families are having the problems you say at Mass I would suggest it has more to do with their particular family dynamic and a lack of discipline rather than them needing somewhere to send their kids during Mass.
 
Last edited:
DignumEtJustum said:
Alright so offer them some pictures of Jesus vaguely based on that particular day’s gospel to go downstairs and color?
Click to expand...
So because your parish did a poor job that means all parishes must do a poor job and the whole thing should be abandoned?

I can tell you that some parishes do a poor job of implementing RCIA. The solution isn’t to abolish the means of bringing people into the Church, it’s to improve what those poor parishes are doing.

The Church is losing the younger generation at a disheartening pace. I don’t think we need to encourage the trend and see whole families become former Catholics.
 
Yeah scrap it because it’s still just an experiment with abysmal results across the Church coinciding with the era of the greatest loss of young Catholics in history. RCIA is a hit or miss I hear and the best ones are the ones offered by the parish priest. If any layman is offering either, I hope it’s a senior as at least they are generally good Catholics whose faiths were formed alongside the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.
 
Last edited:
Again, I don’t think it’s anything happening in the Mass that’s driving people away. It’s everything happening outside of Mass. The lack of faith formation, the lack of community, the lack of teaching. These kids aren’t being taught at home, that means the problem started at home and why aren’t their parents teaching them? Probably because they don’t KNOW to, or because they weren’t taught and it’s just an outright epidemic of miseducation and laxadiacal faith and in my experience the people leaving the Church are seeking something more than that so they leave.

Where I live there’s no bible studies, a group activity once a month, an elderly female congregation who insist that the only things we DO do are feminine and, quite frankly, boring in nature. Tea and bake sales once a year, and a breakfast once a month is NOT enough for people to feel their faith is being nurtured and grown.
 
All those “young Cathlics” that you say we have lost in the past 40 years were raised by those people who were raised on the EF.

Your bias is showing. I get it, anything after VII is bad. But just because you find no worth in it does not mean that it isn’t valuable to someone else.
 
Last edited:
I’ll say this:

CLOW has been a true blessing in our parish. Many children participate (often 20+). Not all go. That’s fine, too. When a child reaches First Communion, they’re encouraged to stay with their parents, but it’s not exactly a black and white line. Same goes for reverencing the altar/tabernacle… the teacher does; some kids do and some don’t. They’ll get it in time by example, or as they get older, it’ll become an explicit part of their formation. The teachers are varied in age but all knowledgeable and capable. Many are teachers in the parish school, where the education (both religious and otherwise) is second to none. The kids typically return to the pews excited to share something they learned or ask questions.

I know it isn’t the same everywhere, but it’s excellent here, and we’re an orthodox parish with a fairly traditional-leaning pastor. I wouldn’t want to see it go; it does too much good.

That said, the debate on this thread is tiring and suffering tunnel vision. Peace. 👋
 
Religious Ed is the time for little children to color pictures and jibber jabber. Any child who can receive the Eucharist should sit through the whole Mass with their family. The wise priest probably skipped it on purpose, knowing that it just tears kids away from their families during Holy Mass.
 
Except for the catechumens, now or then, were sent out for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. They would have been present for the Liturgy of the Word.
 
Last edited:
And so is yours… the bias of the lost generation within the Church thinking they know everything despite every indication to suggest otherwise.
 
Last edited:
CLOW isn’t for children who are old enough to receive the Eucharist. It is for younger children who find the homily incomprehensible. It is a way of telling them the Gospel story and explaining it in terms they can understand.
 
I always thought Mass wasn’t necessarily about learning but about being in the presence of Christ… yes, that goes for children too. And I always imagined the point of having those little ones stay through the entire Mass was so that they could get used to the length of Mass, what is expected of them at Mass (yes, a three-four year old can be taught to sit quietly and patiently through Mass). They SHOULD be learning at home, and if they aren’t I’m not really convinced a little 10-15 minute session at Mass is going to make a difference but that’s just my personal belief based on my personal experiences.

BUT I really feel this is a personal preference thing. There’s no point arguing for it to those who aren’t into it. Some will support it, some will not… and that’s just the bottom line.
 
Well, the homily kind of is about learning. But I completely agree that this is a personal preference – my children had no interest in it, for example. However, I’ve seen it carried out very effectively.
 
I find the homilies tend to be so, so, so … ‘light’ that I never hear anything I didn’t already know. You know what I mean? So it hardly seems they’re teaching us anything we shouldn’t already know as Catholics.
 
Exactly! The liturgy is not a place to divide families.

The parishes around here offer a nursery for kids 3 and under. Older than that, they are welcome at Mass. No one expects robot kids, and it is amazing how little little kids participate.

EDIT TO ADD, infants through 3 are also welcome at Mass, if the parents want a break they can have the nursery care for the tots.
 
Last edited:
SuscipeMeDomine said:
The Church is losing the younger generation at a disheartening pace. I don’t think we need to encourage the trend and see whole families become former Catholics.
Click to expand...
Have you read “Forming Intentional Disciples”? It is an important book and it reminds us that the Church is evangelistic.

And that apologetics follow evangelism, they are not the beginning of evangelism. We must meet people where they are.
 
Cor_ad_Cor said:
When a child reaches First Communion, they’re encouraged to stay with their parents,
Click to expand...
When a child reaches the age of reason, they have an obligation to go to Mass. Having a nice lady give them a homily does not fill their obligation.
JulianN said:
Well, the homily kind of is about learning. But I completely agree that this is a personal preference – my children had no interest in it, for example. However, I’ve seen it carried out very effectively.
Click to expand...
If the children are physically/emotionally unable to sit still for 10 minutes during the homily, then, have an associate pastor do a kid’s homily when they go out.
 
Last edited:
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top