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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

Quick Thoughts

    Hymn by Cardinal Newman
    During the season of Septuagesima, we will be using this hymn by Cardinal Newman, which employs both Latin and English. (Readers probably know that Cardinal Newman was one of the world's experts when it comes to Lingua Latina.) The final verse contains a beautiful soprano descant. Father Louis Bouyer—famous theologian, close friend of Pope Paul VI, and architect of post-conciliar reforms—wrote thus vis-à-vis the elimination of Septuagesima: “I prefer to say nothing, or very little, about the new calendar, the handiwork of a trio of maniacs who suppressed (with no good reason) Septuagesima and the Octave of Pentecost and who scattered three quarters of the Saints higgledy-piddledy, all based on notions of their own devising!”
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Introit • Candlemas (2 February)
    “Candlemas” • Our choir sang on February 2nd, and here's a live recording of the beautiful INTROIT: Suscépimus Deus. We had very little time to rehearse, but I think it has some very nice moments. I promise that by the 8th Sunday after Pentecost it will be perfect! (That Introit is repeated on the 8th Sunday after Pentecost.) We still need to improve, but we're definitely on the right track!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Simplified Antiphons • “Candlemas”
    Anyone who desires simplified antiphons (“psalm tone versions”) for 2 February, the Feast of the Purification—which is also known as “Candlemas” or the Feast of the Presentation—may freely download them. The texts of the antiphons are quite beautiful. From “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium” you can hear a live excerpt (Mp3). I'm not a fan of chant in octaves, but we had such limited time to rehearse, it seemed the best choice. After all, everyone should have an opportunity to learn “Lumen Ad Revelatiónem Géntium,” which summarizes Candlemas.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Impelled by the weightiest of reasons, we are fully determined to restore Latin to its position of honor, and to do all We can to promote its study and use. The employment of Latin has recently been contested in many quarters, and many are asking what the mind of the Apostolic See is in this matter. We have therefore decided to issue the timely directives contained in this document, so as to ensure that the ancient and uninterrupted use of Latin be maintained and, where necessary, restored.”

— Pope John XXIII (22 February 1962)

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