REGINA: And when they get older?
JOSEPH SHAW: When you want to start pointing things out to older children, then the Traditional Mass has another great advantage: the ceremonies are much more dramatic and expressive than in the Novus Ordo.
The traditional Consecration, with its associated genuflections, elevations, bells, and incense, developed at a time when lay Catholics went infrequently to Communion, and it is designed to facilitate a participation in Holy Communion not only by physical reception but by looking, gazing, and by an interior intention.
Thus it is ideally suited to children who haven’t yet had their First Communion.
Parents can encourage their children to make an interior act of Faith (‘My Lord and my God’), and a formal or informal Spiritual Communion at this point, or when the priest receives.
REGINA: Ah, yes. There does seem to be more drama, if that’s the right word.
JOSEPH SHAW: There are many other dramatic and expressive moments in Mass which parents can point out, such as the genuflections in the Creed and the Last Gospel, and when the priest shows the congregation the consecrated host (‘Ecce Agnus Dei’).
There is no need to draw children’s attention to everything every time: you can just point some out every now and then. Children, like adults, must be allowed to participate in the Mass with their own thoughts and prayers.
REGINA: People may wonder what children can get out of the Latin verbiage and complex ceremonies which they will be experiencing in the Traditional Mass?
JOSEPH SHAW: They certainly don’t get much out of the vernacular texts they experience at the Ordinary Form.
From the laity’s point of view, this resembles a lecture: a torrent of words. Something less calculated to engage children’s attention would be difficult to imagine.
Children naturally have limited verbal skills, and even adults struggle to pay attention and to understand a long text delivered orally.
The multiplicity of options and the multi-year lectionary are designed to prevent many of these texts becoming familiar, in case they would be boring, but this again makes them harder to follow.
REGINA |16