In This Issue: "More than Meets the Eye: Formative Liturgical Participation"

The issue of Liturgy entitled “Worship and Formation,” guest-edited by E. Byron Anderson, explores how the liturgy “schools” the assembly through language, ritual, music, shaping of time, and distortion of its intention. This excerpt from Lizette Larson-Miller explains the importance of faith formation for children by their presence worship. Key to that formation is that faith is not a mere cognitive apprehension but rests in communal experience centered in Christ through symbol and sacrament. –– Melinda Quivik

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I really cannot blame parents for wanting their children to go to childcare for a substantial part of every Sunday morning liturgy. I remember what it was like trying to keep toddlers attentive and somewhat quiet through eucharistic liturgies, especially when no one is doing anything interesting (in other words, when someone is just talking). In the parish where I have been “priesting” for several years, conversations with families focus on what they want and feel is
necessary: age-appropriate Sunday School, entertaining for the youngest ones and capable of
instilling a moral compass in the older children, all without demanding much of their own time
on Sunday morning. Imagine my surprise then when a lovely family arrived at church and
insisted their three-year-old remain for the whole liturgy. When he was a bit squirmy, his mom
would walk him around, gazing at images in the stained-glass windows, lighting candles, looking
at icons, or looking through the young children’s books on Jesus in the back corner of the nave.
He was genuinely enchanted, moving around the space, learning to sing the simple chants of
the liturgy, standing next to the organ at the end of the liturgy for a close-up immersion in
the complexities of the instrument. The most engaging activity, however, was apparently simply
watching other people, watching as they sang, spoke, bowed, knelt, processed up to receive
communion, shook hands with others, sat silently with their eyes closed.

When we talk about formation in and through the liturgy, this is exactly what most people
in my experience turn to. How are children learning the liturgy, and shouldn’t they be acolytes
or in the choir to keep them from getting bored when the liturgy itself is not sufficiently
engaging? And because learning “the faith” is central, many spend hours arguing for really
engaging children’s homilies as a wonderful and efficacious addition to the adjacent Sunday
School, the children’s choir, and the acolyting experiences. Again, I do not present these parents
as the problem, they and their children are not just a valuable constituency in any worshiping
community, they are the body of Christ—we are the body of Christ together. What does pro-
vide some frustration, however, is that this particular focus on “teaching the children” becomes
the beginning, the middle, and the end of what is often called Christian formation. What
about the adults, what about all of us together? And are we even close to understanding the
difference between information about and formation in life as a disciple of Christ, or how we
live our lives as Christians, or how we are immersed in Christ through liturgical
spirituality?

In this quarterly journal’s focus on worship and spiritual formation, this particular essay is interested in participation itself as formative, not only in rituals forming habitus in all of us, but also in the power of sacramental formation that shapes us as we often give shape to the outward structure of our liturgical lives. What might be some of the essential elements of sacramental formation?

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Lizette Larson-Miller, professor of liturgy and sacramental theology at Bexley Seabury Seminary in Chicago, as well as the canon precentor for the Diocese of Huron (Anglican Church of Canada), is the author of four books and numerous articles, including Sacramentality Renewed (Liturgical Press, 2016).

Larson-Miller, L. “More than Meets the Eye: Formative Liturgical Participation,” Liturgy 40, no. 2 (2025): 60–67.