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Here is a guide that helps any liturgy planner — even one without
experience — put together a children’s liturgy at a moment’s notice. The core of the guide
is a photocopiable liturgy planning worksheet that includes all of the elements of a coherent and
effective liturgy. You'll learn how to select appropriate music, prepare the environment and
select prayers from available options. Plus you’ll learn the best way to involve children in
the process. As a bonus, the book includes the entire text of the Directory for Masses with Children, the
church document on which your planning should be based.
About the Author
Gail Fabbro currently teaches religion at St. Philip the Apostle parish in
Pasadena, Calif., and is a
member of the Religion Coordinator’s Council for the Archdiocese of
Los Angeles. In the past,
she has worked as a parish liturgist and has been a regular columnist for
Ministry & Liturgy,
as well as writing for other Catholic publications. She completed graduate
work in religious studies and
liturgy at Mount St. Mary’s College in Los Angeles.
Table of Contents
Introduction: When You Know Absolutely Nothing about Planning
Children’s Liturgy
Part I: In the Beginning
Part II: Catechumenate Period
Part III: Fully Initiated
Appendix A: Liturgy Planning Sheets
Appendix B: Celebrations Throughout the Year
Appendix C: Directory for Masses with Children
Following is the introduction to Developing Children’s Liturgy.
All rights reserved. Copyright © 1999, Resource Publications, Inc.
Introduction: When You Know Absolutely Nothing about Planning
Children’s Liturgy
This book is a practical guide to planning a liturgy with children. It does not
presuppose that you know anything about developing a liturgy. It is a
friendly book that will carry you along with ease.
This book is written for all those who pray the liturgy but have never
planned the liturgy. It is for those who work with children in the classroom
but have never worked with them in the church. This book is for those
teachers who have just graduated from college and whose first job is
teaching in a Catholic school. It is for those catechists in the religious
education program whose experience has never included developing
Masses with children. It is for anyone who needs help in the area of
children’s liturgy.
Begin with the practical and the spiritual will follow. When your class is
asked to plan a liturgy and your knowledge of how to do it is minimal, just
pray and trust and read this book.
This book is divided into three parts: for beginners (and before), for
catechumens (learners), and for the fully initiated, liturgically speaking. The
first part is for those who have never, or have rarely, planned or developed
a liturgy with children. This part uses a “trust” liturgy planning
sheet found in Appendix A. This means that a person who has no
knowledge of liturgy planning can take the sheet, trust it completely, and
plan a liturgy for children. The ritual will speak and the experience will
happen.
Many times we have to learn by doing, which may not be the definitive way
to approach liturgy, but it may be all we have in the beginning. Because
you have attended no in-service, class, or workshop that guided you along
the path of children’s liturgy, you can rely on the first planning sheet
to carry you through initially.
The second part, for the catechumens, helps you learn all you can about
what is going on, and how and why and when. The third part, for the fully
initiated, invites mystagogia and gives you the opportunity to continue the
work you have begun and to put into practice all that you have learned.
Remember, we must form ourselves before we begin to form the
children.
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