Children's Mass

Babs started the morning off by throwing up twice, so we decided to do the mass in shifts thing today. I trotted off to the 9:30 with the "family" choir while MrsDarwin and Noogs are currently at our usual 11:30 mass. (Babs has proceeded to eat a huge breakfast and is -- so far -- keeping it down, so perhaps she was just messing with us.)

There seems to be no excuse like "family" for bad liturgy... Not that the 11:30 at our parish is high mass or anything, but there is at least a certain seriousness to it. The 9:30 features an Alleluia with hand motions (What is it with hand motions? I hated them at least as much at age six as I do now -- perhaps more so then since my teachers back in parochial school were always of the opinion it would be 'cute' for us to learn songs with hand motions.) and a setting of the Our Father which lasts into eternity with all the tinkley shallowness of new age elevator music.

I've never understood that theory of liturgy that in order to involve children in it one must assume all the least likeable stylistic elements of childrens TV programming.

This was hardly the worst case of liturgical foolishness I've seen, but one could tell from the signs of boredom and derision among a number of the teens and older children that it was nonetheless doing damage.