By Paige Rien 

Taking children to Mass has many different seasons of service. There is the season where you hold your child in your arms, praying to avoid a diaper blowout, with great hope that you packed the nursing cover up/bottle/snacks/book/pacifier or all of the above, as they make eye contact with people behind you.

There is the season of toddlerdom, in which we work, at high alert, every moment to keep them peaceable and relatively quiet, as they never stop moving in your pew. We hope to avoid a mad dash, accompanied by shouting up the center aisle. (Although we all know that when that happens, it's the Lord’s will to give the parents a workout, the rest of the folks in the pews a little chuckle, and to see who the future CYO track stars will be.)

There is the preschool/grade school season, where we as parents have possibly grown in naïve expectation that our children will behave and sit quietly, with routine Mass attendance. Our great hope is that the snack and book routine is on the wane, and perhaps there is a children’s liturgy or another family to sit near to either encourage good behavior or to mask our own pew’s less than gentle and quiet display of childhood. When we were in this stage, I was told that sitting behind my family was akin to a front row seat at a WWF event, as my sons had mastered the ability to punch each other behind my back, and there were more than a few headlocks.

We then have the teen season. No snacks to bring, no headlocks, and no messes, but even after all the previous years of encouraging, disciplining, cajoling, even donut-bribing our young children, we now contend with teens who aren’t quite on auto-pilot. They are likely not the first in the car on Sunday mornings, and there is still some resistance, although not physical. The desire for sleep is very real, the cynicism about all things originating from mom and dad is serious, and the criticism of almost anything other than their peers is next-level. Perhaps the looming SAT, homecoming dance, or big rival football game has their mind on anything but routine mass attendance.

And so we continue, no rest for the weary. There are many parents who decide “not to force.” We have decided, riffing off other parents who have influenced us, that while our kids live in our home, they will attend Mass, end of story, no discussion. And when I am asked for a supporting argument I relay to my teens what I learned in my 12-step recovery, which is that the Church in her wisdom is smarter than we are. We can’t wait until we feel like going, that system does not work. We go whether we feel like it or not. What my teens do when they are on their own will remain a mystery until it comes, but until then, we will continue to work the routine and encourage the value and the beauty of our Catholic tradition.

Teens offer a unique perspective to Mass. They are listening. They know the routine and flow. They have altar-served. They have Masses they prefer and Masses they find excruciating. They are also, at about the age of 12, now able to observe what I have call “the pew liturgy,” even if they don’t quite know its significance. The “liturgy in the pews” is that which often, not always, takes place right in front of us in the mass.  Sometimes we sit in front of empty pews. But more often than not it seems, the pews reveal something else for us.

I’ve been paying much more attention to this liturgy in recent years, especially now with teens in tow. The idea is that God has placed people, relationships and behaviors in front of you in the church that are showing you something He wants you to know, during the Mass. I have now been present to many beautiful pew liturgies, now that I know they are there.

Don’t get me wrong, I fully understand that our attention should be on the altar as we re-experience our Lord’s Last Supper, along with his passion, death and resurrection, as we prepare to receive the Holy Eucharist. I understand that it’s a quiet time for prayer and preparation. But I also know that there are zero accidents in God’s economy and while many times there is no pew liturgy to speak of, other times, it’s quite something, and is part of our Mass experience alongside our participation in what’s happening on the altar.

My favorites have included a particular father loving an 8 or 9-month old baby, in his arms, which I happened to know, was his foster child. This dad was incredibly tender with this child, as she played with his face, plucked his beard and tried in vain to touch his eye balls. The father expressed an uncommon joy in holding this child who was, for whatever the reason, unexpected, and yet life-giving.

I have been particularly moved by a husband and wife in my own church who, for daily Mass, sit so incredibly closely, every time they are there, that I know I am witnessing a tender marital love, just ten feet away, likely hours after I have begged the Lord to help me love my own husband better than I do.

And of course there is the big family pew liturgy, when we are treated to the delights of sitting behind a family with six or more children, all under the age of 12. When our family, with everyone grown up, sort of, sits behind one of our beloved big families, and witnesses a pew full of babies, toddlers and preschoolers, it always amazes me how far removed teens feel from babies -- especially boys. It’s as if my boys forget that our pew was full of cheerios, giggles, wipe outs, and diaper bags, not that long ago. After one of these particular big family pew liturgies my now 13-year-old son said to me, “I’d love to have that many kids when I grow up.” Praise God for his wordless work that is more than I will ever do, seemingly on my own.

Lately, we are bringing three teenage boys to mass and we are seldom able to attend the early children’s mass, filled with families. As maximum sleep has drifted up to the top of their hierarchy of values, we are often at the 11:30 mass, which is attended by several people from nursing homes. The first few weekends I thought to myself, Great. The dying church. No one their age. They are probably thinking: ‘What’s with all the old people?’ (They were.) But my ideas have shifted about just what my boys are seeing, as I came to understand that this season of life, attending the more sparsely attended midday masses with the old folks, was just another iteration of God’s pew liturgy.

The pew liturgy this past weekend was especially something. The pews in front of us were populated by especially elderly and frail people, even confused people. It was clear that one woman did not quite know where she was or how to participate the entire time she was there. A few of the women fell asleep. There were very few men. Most of them were in wheelchairs or very slow moving. This was our pew liturgy. God makes no mistakes in the placement of two empty pews between my varsity football players and this display of vulnerability, and people in the twilight of their lives.

Their caretaker, who was not young herself, just a step away at all times, quietly guided them into their seats with beautiful gentleness. From the pew behind she slowly removed coats and guided shaking hands to find purses set just out of reach. She gave little squeezes to the woman who seemed the most confused and whispered something in her ear very tenderly as she gripped her shoulders from behind. When it was time to receive Communion, one of the women took great pains to kneel from her seat, a process which took about 30 seconds. My older son had likely been blocking someone five times her size during his football game the night before. Her actions recalled the poor widow at the treasury in Mark 12:41-44, giving of her physical poverty, to kneel. I hope he saw that. I don’t know if he did, but it was hard not to.

In the prime, or approach to their prime, my sons are asked to witness these folks who had made a great effort just to be there and in many ways were living out some kind of addendum to 2 Timothy 4:7 “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” As we say in 12 step rooms, “keep coming back.” These people were living out that very fundamental truth to a happy life: live out your faith until the end.

Teens tend to want other teens -- the language, culture and experiences of others in their same season. It’s the season of life that is perhaps the most saturated with people in the same season. When you’re a child, you need your parents. When you’re a parent, you are with your children, and hopefully your own parents or elders in the community. But when you’re a teen, mostly you are not seeking out other seasons of life. Thank you, pew liturgy, for deftly inserting different seasons into my boys’ point of view. This weekend reminded me that God is forming them beyond what we do or say. 

Next time you’re in Mass, know that who God has placed there in front of you is entirely on purpose, and may have wisdom or grace to offer you or the people you’re sharing your pew with. Know also, that you’re offering a pew liturgy to the people behind you.

Paige Rien is a designer, author, mother of four, wife to Francis, television industry escapee and Catholic convert. She is passionate about encouraging women in their homes. She is the author of two books and is working on a third. She can be found spending too much time on Instagram, @paigerien or at one of her boys' football games cheering too loudly.