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Views from the Choir Loft

Does music keep kids quiet at Mass?

Veronica Brandt · May 4, 2013

WAS GOING TO WRITE a more confident answer to the title of this article, until a recent Mass with the most beautiful singing and the noisiest children. It brought it home that music is not an instant fix. Dr. Peter Kwasniewski’s article last week Music as a Character-Forming Force sheds some light on the subject.

“To think that children will automatically grow up into adults who have a sense of what is and is not fitting, appropriate, noble, beautiful, is as naïve as thinking that they would behave morally or turn to God in prayer with no discipline and no religious education.”

When we teach our children to behave during Mass we are laying the foundations for good habits. There’s the positive side of teaching them the beauty of what is happening there and the negative side of what shouldn’t happen there. This takes time, patience and much repetition, but it is worthwhile!

The music of the Mass is a big help towards this positive side. Children aren’t big on abstract ideas. They have a more concrete world with lots of emotional turbulence. Music is the language of emotions. You can speak to children with the music to communicate the difference between music for dancing around and music for that difficult concept of being quiet and still. Anticipating what music they will hear at Mass and running through it at home can be a huge help. Song is much more effective when you have a go at singing it yourself – get into how it feels.

Bring liturgical music into the daily rhythm with some of the Liturgy of the Hours or Divine Office. There is so much Gregorian chant available, it can be overwhelming, but maybe starting with the Marian antiphon for the season and picking up bits slowly. Children are great with daily rituals.

Reading St. Thérèse’s Story of a Soul we find that as a very young child she did not attend Mass. Her mother would go to an early Mass and then the rest of the family to the main Mass, bringing home the pain bénit or blessed bread (a sacramental, not the Blessed Sacrament). Many of us today cannot arrange something like that, but it is a comfort to know that even saints sometimes didn’t sit still through Mass as young children.

Sometimes it might seem a parent spends all of Mass outside. As our pastor frequently points out, you don’t need a line of sight to the altar to fulfil your Sunday obligation. Taking disruptive children outside is a normal part of teaching children how to behave. It isn’t a sign of a bad child or a problem, but part of the answer.

It may feel like forever, but children do grow up. The days are long but the years are short. Today’s toddlers are tomorrow’s altar servers and choir members. Then we can look back and whisper a “Thanks be to God.”

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Tagged With: Children at Mass Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Veronica Brandt

Veronica Brandt holds a Bachelor Degree in Electrical Engineering. She lives near Sydney, Australia, with her husband and six children.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Luis Martínez Must Go!
    Sevilla Cathedral (entry dated 13 December 1564): The chapter orders Luis Martínez, a cathedral chaplain, to stay away from the choirbook-stand when the rest of the singers gather around it to sing polyphony—the reason being that “he throws the others out of tune.” [Excerpt from “The Life of Father Francisco Guerrero.”]
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

Is this the dumbest statement ever written? “When considering texts for his motets, Gombert obtained his inspiration from Scripture—such as the Psalms—as opposed to the liturgy of the Roman Catholic church.”

— Wikipedia

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Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

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