Welcome the Children

Some of my earliest memories are of being in church at Mass.  We had no cry room at St. Vitus in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and therefore Mom had no choice but to keep my older brother and me in tow.  I don’t remember everything, but I am certain that like typical kids, my brother and I squealed and squirmed and fought with each other during Mass.  But Mom didn’t give up.  Her determination to bring us to Mass had a huge impact.  I may not have understood everything that happened during Mass, but those experiences cultivated and nurtured the seeds of my faith in a way that nothing else could.

Liturgy is a family affair.  Parents not only have the right to bring their children to church, they have a duty to bring their children to church.  According to the Church, the entire Christian community shares the responsibility to foster the faith of children.  That means welcoming them to Mass.   Kids will be kids.  Their tiny bodies are full of energy that prevents them from being still.  They will wriggle and occasionally wail.  That’s their job.  The parent’s job is to model the behavior they expect from their children, to participate fully in the liturgy and to engage their children in singing the songs and praying the prayers.  The job of the Christian community is to be patient, to be tolerant and to be willing to help, remembering that we too were once children.  A smile or a word of encouragement sends a strong message to parents and their children. It says “We welcome you here.” It says “We are a family.” 

Jesus had a lot to say about children. In recent Sunday Gospel proclamations, we heard how Jesus sees the smallest among us:

Whoever welcomes a child such as this for my sake welcomes me … Let the children come to me; do not prevent them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.  Mark 9:37, 10:14

This Saturday, October 17^th, we welcome the children in a special way with a youth-led liturgy.  Children will lead our worship by serving as greeters, lectors, and music leaders.  Let us welcome all of our children, as Jesus did, with open arms.  They are the future of the Church.

Remember

“I ask you to pray for me, don’t forget.”  With these words, Pope Francis departed for Rome following his visit to the United States.  One of the ways we fulfill the Pope’s parting wish to remember to pray for him is through the liturgy.  All of the Eucharistic Prayers are written to mention the current Pope and the local Bishop by name.  For example, in Eucharistic Prayer IV, we hear:

Therefore, Lord, remember now all for whom we offer this sacrifice:  especially your servant Francis, our Pope, Wilton, our Bishop, Luis and David, our Bishops and the whole Order of Bishops, all the clergy, those who take part in this offering, those gathered here before you, your entire people and all who seek you with a sincere heart.

   

Not only do we remember the Pope, the Bishops and all the clergy, we remember the entire people of God.  We remember the living and we remember the dead:

Remember also those who have died in the peace of your Christ and all the dead, whose faith you alone have known.

Liturgy is all about keeping memory.  We come together in order to ask God to remember us, but we also come together so that we can be reminded about the goodness of God.  We are reminded of God’s goodness from the moment we walk into church.  When we are warmly welcomed, we are reminded of God’s hospitality.  When we bless ourselves with holy water, we are reminded that God has chosen us.  When we witness the faith of our fellow parishioners who are struggling, we are reminded that God is living and active.  When we listen to the scriptures and hear how God acted in the past, we are reminded that God is faithful.  And when we hear the story of the death and resurrection of Jesus, we are reminded that God’s love is beyond our human comprehension. 

The Rabbis say, “To remember is to give life.  To forget is to let die.”  The liturgy gives life by reminding us of God’s goodness and by giving us the words to pray in remembrance of all the living and the dead.

Let the People Hear Themselves Sing!

Political commentaries abounded when Pope Francis made his first visit to the United States.  But there were liturgical commentaries too.  The ones that struck me the most were comments made on social media by well-known Catholic liturgical composers about the cantors who served at the Papal liturgies.  These came from Facebook:

Even rock stars get off the mic when they want the people to sing. Why can't cantors? Tony Alonso

Watching Papal Mass in Philadelphia from here in Southern Turkey. Why do cantors sing the assembly's parts into the microphone? Gerry Galipeau

These comments prompted me to reexamine the role of the cantor.  According to the Church,

As a leader of congregational song, the cantor should take part in singing with the entire gathered assembly.  In order to promote the singing of the liturgical assembly, the cantor’s voice should not be heard above the congregation. As a transitional practice, the voice of the cantor might need to be amplified to stimulate and lead congregational singing when this is still weak. However, as the congregation finds its voice and sings with increasing confidence, the cantor’s voice should correspondingly recede. At times, it may be appropriate to use a modest gesture that invites participation and clearly indicates when the congregation is to begin, but gestures should be used sparingly and only when genuinely needed. Cantors should lead the assembly from a place where they can be seen by all without drawing attention from the liturgical action. When, however, a congregation is singing very familiar responses, acclamations, or songs that do not include verses for the cantor alone, the cantor need not be visible.  Sing To the Lord:  Music in Divine Worship. (United States Conference of Catholic Bishops)

The comments regarding the cantors were right on.  The cantor helps remind the assembly that the only voice that counts is theirs.  In other words, it’s not about the cantor, as wonderful as a cantor’s voice might be.  It’s about you, the assembly!   It’s about your voices, (no matter how well or badly you think you sing) united as one body in the praise of the living God.  No sound is sweeter!

Singing during Communion

Pope Francis speaks many languages:  Spanish, Italian, German, French, Portuguese, and Ukrainian among them.  But wherever he goes, Francis primarily speaks the language of mercy.

He continually challenges us to broaden our focus, to look beyond ourselves in order to see the plight of those in need.  This, ultimately, is the language of community.

Community is also the primary language of the liturgy.  As my professor, Monsignor Kevin Irwin would say, “The liturgy is not about the self, it’s about the we.  99% of the pronouns we use in the liturgy are we, our and us.”  Despite our American preference for individual freedoms, we are called to participate in the liturgy as a community--one body--united in Christ.

One of the ways we do that is by singing, particularly during communion.  The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, the book which guides us on how to celebrate the liturgy, says this:

While the Priest is receiving the Sacrament, the Communion Chant is begun, its purpose is to express the spiritual union of the communicants by means of the unitiy of their voices, to show gladness of heart, and to bring out more clearly the "communitarian" nature of the procession to receive the Eucharist. The singing is prolonged for as long as the Sacrament is being administered to the faithful. GIRM 86. 

For some, singing during communion might be perceived as an intrusion on their private prayer.  I have been asked more than once, “Why do we sing during communion?  Isn’t that the ‘me and Jesus time?’”  The idea of private prayer during the liturgy likely stems from a history of liturgical practices.  For centuries, the liturgy was prayed by the priest in Latin, a language people no longer spoke, and in a low voice.  So not only could they not understand what the priest was praying, they couldn’t hear what he was saying!  And there were periods where lay people were thought unworthy to receive communion.   So people prayed their own private prayers, rosaries, and other devotions during  Mass.

Things are different now.  The Church not only gives us permission to sing during communion, it mandates it.  Our own bishops have said that, “Because the Communion chant expresses the unity of those processing and receiving the Holy Sacrament, communal singing is commendable. The singing of the people should be preeminent.” 

The Church hopes that the texts we sing and the act of singing itself will unite us, strengthening the sacramental presence of the Eucharist, so that we too can speak the language of mercy in the world.

Catechesis

Before anyone ever “Beat Bobby Flay,” back when crowning the next “Iron Chef” existed as only a glimmer in a young producer’s imagination, Violet Kuczka created in our kitchen.  I can still smell the enticing aroma of my mother’s culinary craft.  I learned how to cook from my mother, who learned how to cook from her mother, who learned from her mother, and so on.  I learned by doing and so I became Mom’s apprentice.  Whether she was kneading dough or chopping celery, I was right beside her kneading, chopping, measuring, whisking, beating, and doing whatever else was needed.  In the beginning, I learned how to follow a recipe.  But the more time I spent with Mom in the kitchen, I learned that being a cook means so much more than merely following a recipe.  It means being willing to be immersed in a life-long process of learning.  It means learning about change and transformation because everything is changed and transformed in cooking.  It means reminding myself continuously that the goal of cooking is to feed others.  And sometimes that means altering recipes or throwing them out completely and starting over.

The way I learned how to cook is similar to the way we learn about our faith.  We are often drawn to faith by someone whose faith inspires us and who shows us the way to faith.  We learn a lot just by being with those persons, observing how they live and then eventually doing what they do.  We become their apprentices.  Learning our faith may initially involve a basic recipe for prayer--memorizing the sign of the cross or the Lord’s Prayer.  But as we grow, we discover that our faith can’t be contained in knowledge alone.  We eventually come to understand that learning about our faith is not enough, that more is required.  We must live out our faith.  That means trial and error.  Eventually we learn that like food, our faith is not just for ourselves but is meant to be shared with others.

This is the Church’s vision of the Catechumenate, the process by which an unbaptized person is formed in faith.  Catechumens are not merely given information about faith.  Rather, they are formed to live out the faith in a gradual process within a particular faith community.  Catechumens are formed by listening to the Word of God, by praying with the community and by serving alongside the community.   They are apprentices to the community of disciples.  That is why the Church calls the Catechumenate the model for all catechesis.