"Liturgy with kids"?

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Today I attended a different parish than my usual. When I was looking at the bulletin after mass, I noticed that, at the same time as the mass I was at, there was a “liturgy with kids” in a church hall. I have never heard of such a thing. It was NOT the same as when the children are dismissed for the explanatory notes, or whatever it is some parishes do. I’d have noticed a bunch of children leaving during mass.

Does anyone know what this was?
 
Brigadoon said:
Today I attended a different parish than my usual. When I was looking at the bulletin after mass, I noticed that, at the same time as the mass I was at, there was a “liturgy with kids” in a church hall. I have never heard of such a thing. It was NOT the same as when the children are dismissed for the explanatory notes, or whatever it is some parishes do. I’d have noticed a bunch of children leaving during mass.

Does anyone know what this was?
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Some parishes, as you have noted, havel a “Children’s Liturgy of the Word” where the young ones are dismissed before the readings begin so that they can have their own liturgy of the word in a setting apart from the Church. This consists of hearing one reading, the psalm, the Gospel Acclamation and the Gospel. The readings are almost like the ones that the adults read; however, it is in simpler language. If a reflection will be given, it should be written by the priest. Then, the children have their own General Intercessions and they come back to the church during the offertory (or a tad bit earlier).

What you may have read was something geared for another set of kids. They might also be engaged in something called “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” which happens for the much younger children (pre-school) during Mass (at least that is how it was in my former parish in Austin).
 
I don’t think it was CGS for a few reasons,
  1. it was called “liturgy with kids” in the bulletin. My dd was in CGS and it is a wonderful program. It is VERY popular in our diocese. If it were CGS, it would say.
  2. they had a different preschool progam listed called “Godly Play” as part of their Religious Ed.
  3. There were VERY few children at the mass I attended. At the end of mass they gave out special bulletins to the children and only a dozen or so went up. I took note of it b/c it was strange that there were so few kids.
 
I can’t imagine they have enough priests to do it on Sunday every week, but they could be having a children’s Mass parallel to the regular Mass. If they did, then where there is a preponderance of young kids in attendance, a Mass for Children from the lectionary may be used, where even the Eucharistic prayer has simplified language appropriate for children and the homily and readings are also given specifically at the children’s level. The only time I’ve heard such a liturgy used was at a Mass given during the week at a parochial school, but I imagine it is allowed on Sundays, too, if most of those in attendance who are old enough to understand language are nevertheless truly young kids. (As in: mostly younger-than-adolescent kids, plus enough adults and older children to keep the place of worship from becoming a zoo. In other words, not a “youth” mass for adolescents and high schoolers.)

I have heard the boundaries of rubrics are also slightly more broad, although not so much so as is sometimes assumed. That, I don’t know about.
 
Mass for kids?

Somehow, I thought the Eucharistic Sacrifice was for ALL the baptized, regardless of age.
 
When I was a kid, on Sunday’s we had to go to the Children’s Mass -this was before the promulgation of the Mass of Paul VI. Parents would go to mass in the school hall and the kids in the church. The only adults allowed were the sisters and ushers and of course the priest.
 
Brigadoon said:
Today I attended a different parish than my usual. When I was looking at the bulletin after mass, I noticed that, at the same time as the mass I was at, there was a “liturgy with kids” in a church hall. I have never heard of such a thing. It was NOT the same as when the children are dismissed for the explanatory notes, or whatever it is some parishes do. I’d have noticed a bunch of children leaving during mass.

Does anyone know what this was?
Click to expand...
It’s done at the Church I attend as well. It’s called CLoW or Children’s Liturgy of the Word. The children go with the Catechism teacher and learn the same thing the rest of the Parish is listening to, but in terms they can understand. It’s very effective, from what I’ve heard.🙂
 
Children must be helped to understand that their holiness consists in having good relationship with those around them, especially their parents and siblings. The Children’s Liturgy is a good avenue to relate the Sunday Liturgy to relationship to parents and siblings.
In my parish, St Ann, and in the other 11 parishes in the Archdiocese of Kuching, Sarawak, Children’s Liturgy has become a norm. The children are dismissed immediately after the greeting, to a separate room, and return during the offertory.
I have seen only positive outcome out of this initiative and I am grateful to the volunteers who have contributed their talent and time undertaking the task to mould our children.
 
This was NOT “children’s liturgy of the word”. There was no dismissal, no return.
This was something different, and it is something they have every week. It is listed among their mass times. There is a 9:30 mass and a 9:30 “liturgy with kids” in a church hall.

It’s just something I had never heard of and was wondering if anyone else had this at their parish.

BTW- The parish this was at has 2 priests and 6 Sunday masses if you count the “liturgy with kids”.
 
The wonderful old church I attended in suburban Chicago always had a “family liturgy” in the parish hall at 9:30 on Sunday mornings-- and it was basically a “liturgy with kids.” It was the same, reverent, holy Mass as in the church, but you went in knowing it would be full of families with young children and, therefore, the level of unexpected noise and/or chaos was a bit higher than in the church.

It was a good place to train children how to behave during Mass, and still know that if your child DID NOT behave, people weren’t shooting you the evil eye. I liked it much better than having a “cry room” inside the church, which so often turned into a fiasco because parents were not trying to teach their children how to behave at Mass, it was just a “baby box” that was allowed to descend into a weekly play group while Mass was being piped in through a sound system.

Sounds like that may be what you saw . . .
 
We also attend something similar - a Mass that is designated a “family Mass” where families with very young children are actively encouraged to participate fully and not be shunted into the cry room or out in the narthex. An occasional dropped bottle or crying child is overlooked and we can actually teach our children how to behave during Mass by participating in Mass. I bet the “liturgy with kids” is something along those lines.
 
When I think about it, it probably was a family liturgy. I had never heard it called “liturgy with kids” before and that just threw me for a loop.
 
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