Wow, has it really been 18 days since I posted last? I’ve been visiting family for the holidays, but even so that’s a long time… as my little brother would say, I’m loafin’. I’m just in time, though, to wish everybody a Merry Christmas before it isn’t anymore. And Happy New Year as well!
Among other enjoyable holiday activities, the Doctor and I took a short trip with my family to Palm Springs in the week after Christmas. (Ah, the joys of Priceline! With its help we were able to stay, for little more than a Super 8 would cost, in a very comfortable resort-type place featuring multiple heated pools, fountains, picturesque avenues of palm trees, and all the things one would wish to see on a vacation to Palm Springs.) On the whole it was a very successful trip. But because it was over a weekend, it did occasion the unfortunate necessity of going to a Saturday vigil Mass at a random Novus parish in Palm Springs. Mostly there were all the usual things — nothing to compete with last year’s Teen Life Mass — but there was one that I at any rate hadn’t seen before: inviting all the children of the parish up around the altar during the consecration. Now, isn’t that cute.
Obviously this is objectionable on multiple levels. It’s irreverent. Crowding lots of people into the sanctuary makes it feel like story hour, not an intensely sacred event. Also, it’s very bad for the children. Inviting them up to the front (and of course the priest gathered them all behind him so that they were facing the people, rather than having them sit at the foot of the altar to adore the Blessed Sacrament) makes them feel like they’re the center of attention. If there is one time in the week when they should not feel like the center of attention, it is at Mass.
Thinking about it, though, it really just seemed kind of sad. How typically Western, to want to show off whatever children you have by bringing them up right in the middle of Mass. It’s characteristic of aging and dying societies to want to worship childhood and youth. Is it really surprising, then, that people would get mixed up about where to keep the children for the holiest part of the Mass?
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,