Thomas Believes
Sometimes laypeople who think they are speaking for the Catholic Church or in favor of her doctrines and policies are really only speaking for themselves, from their own more-or-less uninformed position, or their desire to “help” the Church get “relevant” in the 21st Century.
The most frequently-heard commentary usually revolves around sex, marriage, and family life, although the more protested against doctrines like Mary’s perpetual virginity or Purgatory frequently come in for some well-meaning but poorly informed exposition. But very often, it is the simple act of teaching a child to participate in worship and reverent behavior that comes in for the most discussion.
One of the things the Church always taught (less so in today’s “liberated” Church) is that children are welcome at Mass and learn the Faith doing what they see respected elders doing when they attend. It isn’t hard to see that frequently, today’s kids are rambunctious little rascals who have no idea why they are in the building in the first place, let alone what they should be doing while they are there. The buildings frequently look like professional malls, with not a single representational image of anything holy. The interiors look like schools, and the church itself often has very little to tell it from the little evangelical storefront chapel down the street. It’s not a great stretch to understand why children in church are so disruptive.
The Church has always taught that children should be catechized from a very early age. The sooner they learn their faith, the more faithful they will be to it. But to hear some of these less-than-experts tell it, the parents should not “force” the Faith on their children, but wait until the kids are big enough to make their own choice about where they want to go to church (or even whether they will go). It would be interesting to see how this might play out: Do the parents get a baby-sitter while they go to Church on Sunday? Obviously, this is not a really workable solution. It’s clear that most parents who felt the need to not instruct their children in the Faith would probably not be practicing it very well, themselves, so the solution for these parents is a simple one: Just continue to not live out your faith, and you will be sure to raise uncatechized children. If the parents have had their children baptized, then those children belong to the Church, and to deprive them of what the Church has to offer, even in their tender years, is to fail them.
I’m not saying that youngsters catechized from an early age are any better per se. What I am working around to is the fact that it isn’t hard to see that catechizing a child in a religion that he has no respect for is not going to have the desired effect on the child’s spiritual life and immortal soul. Lessons that spend the entire hour focusing on ways to “help the environment” do very little to teach a child how to resist sinful behavior, to tell the difference between good and evil, or to show his love for Jesus or the saints. And they don’t do anything at all to teach a child how to behave in church.
In the “good old days” of the Church, children learned their faith by doing it. Catechism class was side B of this process. They learned the rules of the faith from their Baltimore Catechism No. 4 and learned how to practice what they learned as they sat next to their parents in a hushed and often magnificent church that left no doubt as to its function and purpose. The people who worshipped, the priests who celebrated, the nuns who prayed and taught had no doubt in their minds about where they fit into the economy of salvation and the life of the Church. And the children who were present, learning, would grow up to become adults who had the same confidence and peace of mind.
Today’s youngsters, as mentioned above, come into what looks like the local library or dental office, and don’t see anything to tell them that there is holiness there, except perhaps an ugly, plain tabernacle on a side table, a detatched main table, a detatched Christless cross, and some chairs sitting in a semi-circle. No statues to teach about the saints, no architecture to draw one’s eyes toward Heaven, no magnificent art or sculpture to thrill the heart, no magnificent stained glass windows containing Biblical stories or pictures of saints. No behaviors can be seen anywhere that would indicate to a child that that in which he participates (if he’s even paying attention) is the Miracle of the Ages.
My 6-year-old grandson stands beside me in Divine Liturgy, and sings all the chants and responses from memory. I have to use the book. He has learned by example, and when he holds a copy of the book we use, I give him the right page, point out where we are, and say, “This is where we sing, ‘Lord, have mercy!’” He is learning to read, and follows as well as he can. But he knows he’s there for a reason on that Sunday, and that all the adults he sees are participating, while all the boys from the age of seven on up are serving at the altar. He is waiting eagerly for his opportunity, and has even asked when he gets to go and sing in the schola (a capella choir). None of this was taught by leaving him at home. And he was “forced” to pay attention and to show reverence, as any child of good Catholic parents is.
When he is grown, the things he learned as a child will have to be modified to suit an adult understanding. But those activities and acts of faith and reverence that he is learning as a child today will always be there, and if he respects his parents, he will learn to love and respect the Holy Things by extension, because of the example he has seen them set.
“Forcing” a child to participate in the Protestantized, watered-down, wimpy, feel-good-warm-fuzzies pseudo-Church of most American parishes today is a distinct disservice to a child. Better to find a traditional parish that worships in a real church, kneels, lives out its faith daily, and expresses its awe and reverence for the Holiest of all things we know: The act of Consecration, as it takes place on an altar of profound beauty in a building set apart for that express purpose.
“We learn by doing,” the old saying goes. Even if we are “forced” to do the things we are learning. Children are notoriously rebellious, and being forced to participate without complaint reflects well on the parents and teaches the child that there are times and events in his life that require his attention and respect.
It’s much easier for us to teach our children to participate when they are small than to try to convince an adult mind of the truth of the Faith. The child has absorbed his truth and faith throughout his life as a result of his parents’ discipline. The unbelieving or uninformed adult has had no standard to follow, and will end up believing in anything. The choice is always the parents’, and the child will be the eventual winner (or loser).
