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June 12, 2025Over the past couple of years, I find that I’ve begun outright smiling and sometimes laughing quietly in Mass when I hear the sound of a baby crying out or a toddler issuing vocal demands during the celebration. Let me tell you, humor was not an emotion I felt at the time my small boys were sending up and out those same loud struggles years ago. But now, with those years of wrestling littles during Mass behind me, I find true joy in hearing others in those battles.
It’s not with a sick sense of humor or thrill of another’s pew tussle that I smile. It’s that now on the other side of that, I feel a deep elation hearing those small voices amplified in the prayerful setting and recognize that they are prayers themselves. I hear the obstinance of the three-year old and laugh recalling those same moments with mine – both in church and even before, trying to get to Mass and feeling like I was losing my religion. I also remember how, when my boys got a little older, I began to love being in church because they would each climb on me or hold me in some way like they couldn’t get close enough. It was the one hour a week I got those long, uninterrupted snuggles I didn’t have to beg for.
This past Sunday in Mass, I experienced this same delight listening to a rowdy child from somewhere in the back of church. And then, that afternoon, I saw a Facebook post from Fr. Korey Lavergne that broke my heart and lifted me up at the same time about a mother who’d left Mass that morning because someone asked her to shush her children, making her feel unwelcome. Since this was a topic I was considering for my reflection and then happened upon Fr. Korey’s words, I felt called to share parts of his posts. As always, he has such a way with words; and his two posts around this topic combined were shared more than 2,500 times!
Grandparents reading this, please share it with your sons and daughters who are on the “children in church” struggle bus. Young parents reading this, please know that you really bring more joy to those pews in your chaos than you’ll know. Keep showing up – for them and for God.Here, we believe a crying child is a sign of life. A tired mom wrestling a toddler is a sign of faith. And a noisy pew is a sign that the Church is still growing.
We all want reverence. But reverence without charity is just noise. The kind of holiness Jesus calls us to is patient, kind, and willing to suffer a little so someone else can keep their place in the pew.What happened earlier today wasn’t just about one pew, one parish, or one mother. It was about the Church.
The comments from mothers, fathers, priests, and lifelong Catholics have made one thing painfully clear: We must do better.
There are parents afraid to bring their children to church. There are parishes where crying is treated like defiance. And there are moments when the place that should feel most like home becomes the place of deepest rejection.
This cannot be the norm.
The Church cannot afford to treat young families like a burden. We cannot ask for vocations to the priesthood and religious life if we refuse to support the vocation of motherhood in our pews. We cannot pray for growth while glaring at the ones who make noise.
To those who feel distracted or frustrated by the sounds of restless children, I ask this with love:What if that noise is not a problem to fix, but a prayer to join?
What if the cry in the pew is a call to patience, or even to spiritual adoption?
You have run your race. Now others are just beginning theirs. Let your legacy be mercy.
We were all children once. Someone kept us in the pew. Someone carried us to Jesus.
Let’s not be the reason someone else walks away.
Let’s be the Church that stays. The Church that welcomes. The Church that suffers joyfully through crayons, snacks, meltdowns, and noise because we know what is at stake.
We are not done yet. God is still raising saints in the crying chaos of the pew.
And I, for one, will not silence them.
—Fr. Korey