CHILDREN AND LITURGY - #2

My heart is deeply moved when I consider the many ways children suffer in our country and in our world. "Children are among the most vulnerable and the most victimized, "writes Douglas Sturm ("On the suffering and Rights of Children: Toward a Theology of Childhood Liberation" in Solidarity and Suffering. Albany, SUNY, 1998, p.39). "Children have been whipped, beaten, starved, drowned, smashed against walls and floors, held in ice water baths, exposed to extremes of out door temperature, burned with hot irons and steam pipes. Children have been tied and kept in upright positions for long periods (Sturm, p. 39-40)." Children experience neglect, danger, brutality, and death.

How are we to respond to the suffering of children? Anguish, anger, and loud cries for justice are fitting responses. Adults have the power to act on their behalf. Adults can liberate children from social systems of oppression and slavery. Children need to experience communities where adults commit themselves to protect, love, and cherish all children. In turn, children need to be safe, to be protected from danger, violence, abuse, and exploitation.

Douglas Sturm suggests that adults consider two things about children. First, he points out that children are more dependent and vulnerable than adults. Second, children are active agents keenly aware of their surroundings. Their potential for creative intercommunication is greater than many adults realize. Children need adults who will nurture them and their lives. This means that adults should not dominate children. This means that adults should provide environments where children can be active participants. Every child has a right to create her own meaning and to play a part in her own history (Sturm, p. 45-7).

Children participate creatively in their world. They enjoy dual citizenship in the body of Christ and in the world community. We need to provide occasions for conviviality and contexts for love and lives. "A child, from the very beginning of its presence in the midst of the community is a center of feeling, thought, and action. Children are not merely a neutral stuff to be shaped and molded through socialization, but are themselves sources of novel possibility and surprise (Sturm, p. 48)."

Through baptism and the seal of the spirit, each child is a member of the body of Christ. When a parish is saturated with love, children and adults flourish. Adults and children learn the graciousness of God and the loving kindness of God's people.

There are some practical things that adults can do to help children grow as members of the body of Christ. First, adults need to notice and acknowledge children. We do this by calling children by their name. Second, adults need to respect children by listening to them and by taking their ideas seriously.

There are some practical things the church community can do to help children grow in faith. First, adults need to take children to Sunday liturgy. They need to sit with children and sing with them. Second, adults need to pray with children and to cultivate one another's imagination. Third, adults need to be reverent in their use of the material elements of this world and the rich soil of symbols.