Barnyard praise

I am wondering if I can possibly capture a scene I saw today with appropriate hilarity. Being in a time when I needed a dose of folk religion, I went to a small, Roman Catholic church which has all sorts of rather baroque statues. The unexpected interval of humour was a combination of comedy sketch and deja vu.

A nun of quite mature years was rehearsing a group of children (7 or so - probably preparing for first communion) in songs that were a combination of silly and ghastly - and, worse yet, these were being performed with gestures. (The entire effect was of nursery songs in a park.) The kids were raising their arms up and down, after the fashion of someone working out with hand weights - cupping their hands behind their ears - doing knee bends. I can enjoy a good boy choir, but otherwise hate children's voices (and the songs they sing in five keys simulataneously), and I hope I'm not sent to spend some time with sounds of the sort I heard today when I die. Yet I did manage to retain my composure, until the group got to the 'Alleluia.' Except for the final 'a,' at which point they raised their hands high, they were making motions with their arms which exactly resembled playing at being a chicken. I was surprised no one laid an egg.

My own first communion was naturally in the last days of the Tridentine Mass. Except for our singing a few poor and sentimental hymns, there was little room for nonsense. Yet it suddenly struck me, as I watched this Sister striking poses that seemed a combination of interpretative dance and grand mal seizure, that, when the 'something for the children' malady became epidemic forty years ago, she would have been about 27, and undoubtedly found it all relevant as things could only be relevant in the 1960s. The question in my mind, and one which I wonder if Sister was asking herself, then or now, if the games they were playing, and probably enjoying, constituted worship.

In too many parishes, liturgy, music, preaching, and just about everything else in public worship was ruined because influential Sisters and laywomen, who became very involved, wanted everything aimed at the kids. Adults and anyone over the age of ten were condemned to an aesthetic and intellectual wasteland. Of course, in my young adult years, there were liturgies aimed specifically at my age group, and that could work, provided the entire congregation was composed of the young. Sadly, those of my generation who would be involved with parish activities ten or fifteen years later forgot that what drew us to such celebrations was that they were part of an entire, now defunct, youth culture. Where the idea that the parents would bring in the (young) kids had been popular a generation earlier, they hoped the kids would bring in the parents. Stupidly, they would schedule liturgies for youth - but perish the thought that friends sat together! They were supposed to come with parents and sit with their families!

Yes, I know this idea was popular even when Victoria was on the throne - but liturgies should not be focussed on catering to kids (unless it is a service specifically for children) or on fostering family togetherness. When this is the case, one must abandon the practise if one cares to grow up.

To communion we shall go, we shall go, we shall go,
To communion we shall go, my fair kiddies...