Children and the musical liturgy
Children love music. They dig rhythm. Many move easily and without guile. When some find difficulty expressing emotion and thoughts through words, music speaks to them. Through music, children can develop gross and fine motor skills that serve them throughout their physical, intellectual and spiritual development. Children can very often repeat singable musical phrases and grasp the language of music at a very young age. Although some children may not show apparent musical abilities until puberty, my years of experience as a classroom music educator for special needs children, mainstream classroom and teaching gifted and talented children combined with my years as a pastoral musician taught me that all children act and react to the elements of music in tangible and viable ways.
Parishes who do not attend to the musical nature of children within liturgical celebrations miss out on a rich resource that not only awakens a deeper spirituality and faith in its youngest population but loses a window of opportunity to awakens its adult assembly into more active worship. Who can deny the invitation of children that invites an assembly into musical prayer? The musical liturgy that attends to the faith development of children as it breaks open sacred scripture and allows a fuller experience of the living word alive in its participants shapes an entire church as young voices prompt adult voices from lethargy into active engagement. Yesterday, four young women reminded me of the importance of the Church's mission of evangelizing through the musical arts.
Danielle Trial, Chris Eubanks, Katie St. Pierre, Martha GannonThe four young women in the picture met in a parish where I served as the music teacher in the parish Pre-K-8 school and served simultaneously as the pastoral musician/associate of the parish. Yesterday, we all gathered to celebrate Katie (third from the left), 'showering' her with love and gifts as we anticipate her marriage this coming October. Danielle, Chris, Katie and Martha all sang in the parish Children's Choir. They learned ensemble music from resources like Rise Up and Sing that incorporated psalms, mass parts and hymns that were easily sung by the entire assembly. The girls emerged as leaders of song and developed their ability to serve as cantors of sung prayer. As their individual singing abilities became apparent, they led psalms and canticles for Children's Liturgy of the Word for the youngest members of the community. When their confidence and musicianship continued to flourish, I integrated them into the Adult Choir as leaders of song when I merged all ensembles together for feasts and special events. They tell me that their love of music and of worship began with their experience of the musical arts in Children's Choir.
Three out of the four girls chose music as a profession and still lead music for worship in several locations. Although she chose nursing as a profession, the fourth still sings in a parish choir. Other wonderful young pastoral musicians that I mentored, taught and nurtured throughout the years took the work seriously and continue to serve as cantors, organists, music directors and choir directors in parishes everywhere. When we cooperate with grace and plant a seed in God's vineyard, sometimes we're fortunate to witness the marvelous fruit of our love and labor. Deo gratias.
Children are now
Some veteran pastoral musicians believe that if we 'train' children in the practice of musical liturgy, we will somehow insure the musical church for future generations. While I agree that the practice of a robust ministry of the musical arts will hopefully act as a feeder system for the church of tomorrow, I believe that there is nothing more important than the church at our disposal now, in this time and place and in the bodily presence of the children in our midst. Children are not the future; they're here with us now in liturgical worship. God aches to speak to them. Why are we not putting our best energy, imagination and creativity at the disposal of our most vulnerable members who trust us to listen to their needs and respond to them in a way that speaks to their hearts?
I must tell you that in my travels, I do not find many parishes that engage young children in sung prayer and in the practice of breaking open God's word. Vatican II gave us a vision of pastoral creativity, of imagination to capture hearts and lead them to God. I believe that one of the powerful ways that we can engage children in the liturgy is the through the practice of the musical liturgical arts to develop faith in children of all ages through resources that uses rich imagery. Where is our commitment to children on behalf of their conscious and active participation in the Eucharistic liturgy and beyond, when they are sent from the liturgy into the marketplace to be leaven in the schoolyard, the soccer field, the classroom, with adults and among their own peers?
Begin at the beginning
Initiative may be half the battle. Who can deny that we want to engage children in the prayer and worship of the church? But where do you begin if you're not musical, if you don't have a full time pastoral musician to initiate a children's choir, ensemble and youth choir? Where do you begin if you have limited resources? In my opinion, full time professional pastoral music directors really have very little excuse to eliminate an entire population of young people from their music programs. Fostering and nurturing the musical liturgy includes little people. Period. But what about parishes with less?
Just begin. I recommend initiating Children's Liturgy of the Word. Children are dismissed from the assembly before the celebration of the Liturgy of the Word with a blessing. They are sent forth to break open the Word of God with a leader in a separate and reverent space to hear and testify how the Word of God is active and present in their own lives. Each CLOW includes prayers, readings, psalms, songs and petitions that follows the structure being celebrated in the adult assembly. Here's a sample of Children's Liturgy of the Word from Liturgy Training Publications.
http://www.ltp.org/resources/CLW13_Sample.pdf Another resource? Check out Treehaus Communications at
http://www.treehaus1.com/
But what about music?
To provide music for the celebration, use Music for Children's Liturgy of the Word by Christopher Walker and Paule Freeburg, DC, published by Oregon Catholic Press. The music books and CD sets for Cycles ABC provide more than 130 psalm responses and gospel acclamations for all the liturgical seasons. Chris and Sr. Paule offer simple melody lines, rhythmic interest that capture children and faithful scriptural texts. So easy that a child can do this! If you want to take a step further and send a cantor from your choir or train several of your youth choir students or experienced leaders in your children's choir to lead music for CLOW, all the better!
But there's no excuse to do nothing. All the resources are available --- children, leaders and published resources.
http://www.ocp.org/products/11194Once you begin, I think that you might be surprised at the adult resources that exist in your parish. Parents, experienced teachers and even some musicians that worship in your pews may be willing to step up and help if you cast wide the net and invite your parishioners into the journey. And what pastor will decline an opportunity to reach out to strengthen and expand parish outreach to his youngest population? A vital part of the church, our children,wait for the adult church to step up and do our best to give them every opportunity to sing and pray well. What are we waiting for?
Denise Morency Gannon
Reader Comments (2)
Happy Easter! As always I enjoy your columns. I thoroughly agree with including children in the liturgy. Here at St. Mark's we have a youth choir that sings each Sunday that religious ed. classes meet. The 2nd grade children have class starting at 8:30. They then attend the 9:30 Mass as a group and join in the singing with the youth choir. We have done this for the last several years and it has been a great success. I use a variety of sources, all OCP, i.e. Spirit and Song, Never Too Young and the tried and true Music Issue. My challenge is keeping the kids beyond 5th or 6th grade and selecting a variety of music that isn't too simplistic yet easy enough for the younger children to learn. Suddenly it becomes uncool to sing in the choir when they reach this middle school age. Even worse, parents stop bringing their children to Mass once they've received the Sacraments. We have a contemporary group that I've tried to bring the older kids into but it ends up just being us old farts. Another obstacle is too many activities taking up these kids' after school hours. It seems the most talented and gifted kids are especially involved in school activities and church activities are never a priority. I don't mean to sound negative but this is the truth. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.
Christine Duquette
This is a really great reply Christine and I'm thrilled to know of both your success with Children's Choir and your continued efforts on behalf of our young people.
I found that leadership was the answer to the big 'turning point' in the 5th and 6th grade era. That's about the time when I would twin several good young singers and train them as cantors to lead song for adult assemblies. They partnered with the CLOW team and led song for the younger children and really enjoyed stepping up as leaders. It also enticed other young people their age to want to develop their own youth ensemble. As in all parishes, young musicians are learning not only to sing but to play instruments. I put them all to work. Several of my best success stories started off as instrumentalists and ended up discovering that they could sing and enjoyed it. One of them, now a trained opera singer, began as a flutist because she thought she had no vocal ability in her teens. She is a rockin' soprano and founded her own opera company when she's not performing!
I do understand that other activities merge into the mix of church verses 'other stuff' but there's always that small population that finds their comfort zone and interest in church communities and even more specific, within the musical arts. Creating young leaders can begin at a young age and encourages them to devote time and energy into liturgical activity. I've even done theater pieces like Tales of Wonder and Agape (Marty Haugen's pieces) and others with young students between grades 5-8 with a lot of success. I actually had more kids than I could handle who wanted to get involved. Think as creatively as you can about your program and see what develops. Involve them in planning the events, ask them for their ideas and explore every avenue and never give up! It's very important work that bears fruit even beyond what we sow. Asking parents to become involved helps too. People are busy but they'll step up if their children show interest in a particular area.
You may want to try rehearsing them at a really weird time -- 5-6pm, right after activities and before dinner. I had a lot of success with that time of day.
I hope that this is helpful.
May I ask that you post your reply on the blog? That way others can see your comment and may have alternative answers that may answer some of your questions. Just cut and paste your comment right into the Post a comment section. Thanks a million.
And thank you for your ministry, your feedback and continued attempts on behalf of the church. You might want to check out NPM's convention in Washington D.C this year. They have some events that concern children and pastoral music that you may find helpful. http://www.npm.org/
Keep in touch Christine. You're doing great work; keep it up!