Life Teen
My friend Dom had an article about Fr Dale Fushek being accused of something that we're not entirely sure happened. However the posting began to be about-much to Dom's chagrin, I'm sure- LifeTeens so called "playing fast and loose" with the Liturgy.
Teen Masses have always been perplexing. Are they under the "Childrens' Mass"? Should we expect that Teens should worship the exact same way as adults? What is admissable?
I'm not advocating anything that is not proper to the Mass, believe me. But most teens do not have any appreciation for the organ or choir music. If well done, why not guitars, drums and other such instruments?
Seriously, at what point can we say we need be aware of the needs of those we are ministering to? We have to always draw people up higher, to things that are better, more beautiful, more sacred-but teens just may not be able to appreciate that yet.
While I stridently argued for LifeTeen on Dom's blog, secretly I often find myself on the fence with some of the things we do for the teens. I will always advocate for the teens-yet how do we help them see the better, the more beautiful the more sacred? Dumping them every week into the organ Mass? Or can drums and guitars and such be a way of getting them down the road to such appreciation of high workship?
posted by TCYM Lounge @ 7:47 PM
3 Comments:
I am absolutely opposed to the program's liturgical abuse and crappy music. If my parish had had Life Teen when I was a teen, I would probably not be Catholic today, as that sort of liturgy totally turned me off as a teen whenever I encountered it. When you appeal to the styles of the culture, you inevitably leave kids behind. But what I wanted to post about more importantly is the rather expensive cost of the Life Teen program. Anyone can come up with the idea of LifeNight (which IS a really good idea), so essentially, the youth minister is paying for materials and ideas that it SHOULD be his job to come up with. Essentially, in most parishes, you end up with a near-full time youth minister being paid $30,000 per year to purchase ideas from Life Teen and implement them. Most people don't think of this.
- Mike Roesch
I'm not ecstatic about LifeTeen liturgical practices, either, but so long as the participants understand that, as they grow in Christ their liturgical habits will also have to grow and mature (e.g, you can't be in LifeTeen worship forever), I think it's something you shouldn't worry too much about. So long as they understand this is the Body and Blood, we have to be reverent, etc--it sounds to me like LT's doing its job.
Better--far better--that than they should be drawn off into non-Catholic life.
This is true, but as a student at Notre Dame, which has dormitory Masses far worse than anything Life Teen does, students very often leave school, and then when they cannot adjust to normal parish life, just stop going to Mass altogether. These are the marginal Catholic youth as opposed to those who have really gotten a lot out of Life Teen, but it's still a concern.
Mike
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