Ben Myers: On children's participation in the Liturgy

Here is an essay from the conservative theologian Ben Myers about his six-year-old son's experience of the Great Vigil of Easter, which in their case began in the pre-dawn hours:

Somehow we all got out of our pyjamas into clothes and shoes, and a few minutes later we staggered bleary-eyed off to church for the five-thirty Easter vigil.

In our parish, several of us had made efforts to encourage families to bring their children to the Great Vigil. For the most part, these efforts failed. Still, I think that we were on the right track. Myers again:

As far as I can tell, it's not that the liturgy is inherently inhospitable to smaller people. The great symbols of our worship are things that children instinctively love and understand. Indeed, they are such good honest things that even adults can understand them: water, bread, book, flame.

Is it too hard to imagine that children could be encouraged to participate not in some sanctified playgroup in a back room, but in these same symbols, as glorious for their simplicity as for their depth? When my son held his candle on Easter morning and bellowed out the church's great "Amen" after every reading, was he just experiencing a child-friendly version of the real thing? Was his rapt waxy-fingered attention anything less than genuine worship, since even with his limited understanding he was able to draw upon the symbols of faith and to make himself at home within their world of meaning?

A month later, I still feel the warm stifling closeness of our Parish Hall, crammed with people and candlelight, as we heard the Nine Lessons and sang the Psalmody as best we could. It was in truth beyond us, and under-rehearsed despite my efforts in the preceding rehearsals and despite our extra time in the warmup rehearsal. But I am not sure that our level of musical performance mattered that much. What did matter was the experience of sharing the Story among these our brethren and friends in what amounted to a cave around firelight.

And then the exuberance of going from that place to the Church, all the lights on as bright as they will go (much brighter than we normally use for Sunday mornings), the large expansive space with its beautiful acoustic, the cool fresh air of Easter Morning. And the Music.

One family, a mother and her two adult children, hated it. They left as soon as they could. They hated being in the Parish Hall instead of the Church as we had been in the past. They hated the long boring expanse of nine lessons and psalmody. They did not stay for Easter, so they missed the part that caused it all to make sense. And they assure us that they will never return to the Vigil.

We have much to do. And I do not know what direction that should take. But I do know that it is important.

From the encyclical letter Lumen Fidei, begun by Benedict XVI and completed by Francis I in June 2013:

The light of Christ shines, as in a mirror, upon the face of Christians; as it spreads, it comes down to us, so that we too can share in that vision and reflect that light to others, in the same way that, in the Easter liturgy, the light of the paschal candle lights countless other candles. Faith is passed on, we might say, by contact, from one person to another, just as one candle is lighted from another. Christians, in their poverty, plant a seed so rich that it becomes a great tree, capable of filling the world with its fruit. (section 37)

Alleluia. Christ is risen.
The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.