Don’t Just Stand There!

Music is one of the very best ways to enable children to participate in liturgy. Good music adds joy and beauty and interest to a celebration[1], and provides opportunities for participation for choir members and instrumentalists, for percussionists and dancers, for cantors and psalmists, song-leaders and even for young composers, and for everyone in the assembly.[2][3] Like liturgy, singing is an activity of the whole person. Moving and dancing are natural responses to music, and so songs with actions, songs that invite you to dance, songs that encourage movement, bring liturgy to life and enable fuller and more meaningful participation, especially in Masses with children.[4][5] Music has a unique way of fixing words in the memory, and actions do this even more effectively, whether the words are prayers, texts from Scripture, or Gospel messages.