What I did was to teach them the prayers said at Mass and encourage them to pay attention at a younger age than anyone would expect
I didn’t remember it until I read this. Getting the children engaged took up a lot of time.
Reverencing icons on arrival and departure. Explaining what was happening in the icons reverenced.
Noticing icons when their attention wandered. We had a keyring full of laminated icon cards to flip through for the younger ones who couldn’t focus .
Can you find an icon with Mary? Who is Mary holding in that icon? How many icons with Mary can you find? Where’s an icon with Mary as a baby? Where is Mary when she was a child? Where is Mary when she was pregnant with Jesus? Where is Mary when she died? How many Marys are in that icon? Two! A big Mary who fell asleep and little Mary born into heaven! Where’s an icon of Jesus when he was born?
Whispering narration of what was going on. There’s a Guardian Angel Children’s Prayer Book that comes in blue or white with an angel on the front that was invaluable as a young child’s liturgy guide.
Let’s sing with the angels! Here come the gifts! It’s almost time to receive Jesus!
And the coloring pages. They have them in a book for every Sunday and feast day. Sometimes, I felt like narrating a coloring page in 3 sentences or less was the depth of my liturgical experience. Other moms got together to discuss the upcoming Mass readings while I colored a donkey or a palm tree. I craved for more, so I’d try to match the colors to iconography to learn more about liturgical art at the least.
I remember I had a long time where I did nothing but encourage the Sign of the Cross. We’d count how many they did. First with prompting, then without. If they did X many, they’d get a treat after church. I kept increasing the number until they were paying attention to the words enough to recognize when to do the Sign of the Cross.
Then we started listening more closely. If they did it, they’d get a treat.
How many times are the angels mentioned? Who can be first to recognize when we mention Joachim and Anna?
And all that while constantly going out of church for misbehavior.
Those are long years. They work on the children’s appreciation and participation in the liturgy, but it is hard to do when Mom’s working on her own. If you have someone who can watch them or if you have time before they wake or after they sleep, being able to pray the shorter liturgical hours like 9th hour and compline on your own can help Mom be nourished. Most moms don’t have the time or energy. I had to come to accept that this season grows a mom in different ways, like humility, submission, perseverance, forming Christian community and realizing our dependence on God. They were ways I didn’t really want to grow in, so I resisted it and tried to fill it with something I was more comfortable with, like learning or singing. When they’re older, there’s time for Mom to go deeper into the liturgy. Too much time. I wish I’d been able to appreciate that while I was taking a screaming child who was throwing the ring of icons out of liturgy for the 7th time.
Teaching them this did take a long time so I spent a fair amount of time outside the church with a misbehaving child–but *not *allowing them to have any fun–I tried to make it less fun or interesting than inside.