You are incredibly fortunate. The vast majority of the parishes I have attended since the 1980s have the prayers ‘written’ by anyone from the priest, to the head of the parish council or the DRE, or, in too many parishes to count, the Faithful are encouraged either to write them in ‘the book’ which itself is carried ceremoniously down and then all that particular Mass’ prayers are read aloud, often with the priest at the end responding, “OK, everybody, anybody else have a particular thing they want to pray about’ followed by people calling out various and often conflicting intentions from where they stand. And sometimes there is a particular Sunday of the month for the children where the tots doing all the singing and the reading and come around the altar and, of course, have their prayers for Mommy and Fido and ‘no more tests at school’ with all the requisite “Awwwwws” and loud, “aren’t they PRECIOUS” murmurs to accompany.
I remember that every time I was lucky enough to visit, or to actually wind up in (praise and thank you God) a parish that does what yours does Regarding the Prayers of the Faithful, I gave extra thanks (and extra in the church envelope).
Oh, before anybody gives the usual, “oh you rigid witch you should be thankful the children come to Mass”. . .of course I’m thankful. Crying children, even somewhat disruptive children and downtrodden parents doing their best. . . I am the first to come to them after Mass and thank them for coming and finding something to praise about their children and how important it is for families to come to Church. But that doesn’t mean that even if it’s adorable Arabella lisping infant cuteness that it should be celebrated simply because “she’s so cute’. Anyway my grandsons are the epitome of cuteness anyway, you’d better believe it.
IOW, saying that some things in Mass belong to the provenance of adults or of the clergy (I.e., except in extraordinary cases of an extremely intelligent and articulate small child who has the ability to read and speak with the understanding of a teen, say, children should not be reading the readings at Mass, and under NO circumstances should children or adults, save those who are serving the Mass, be coming up around the altar at the consecration. . .no matter how CUTE they look or sound.
