Q: Thanks for this hugely helpful blog. At my UK parish we have recently started to have young, primary school age children on the reading rota at mass, and they can now read at any parish mass (not just the youth mass where it has been custom for teenagers to read for some years). Has there been a change for this to happen and is it customary elsewhere?
Thanks very much.
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A: Thanks for your comments on my blog.
How wonderful that you are involving primary school age children in the readings at Mass. The liturgical documents assign no age limits to readers. There has been no change in this.
Years ago when I was pastor of a parish with a Catholic school we trained some of the children to be readers, just as we trained some to be altar servers. We selected children with a gift for reading, trained them, and let them serve on a rotation like the servers. Some of them read better than the adults!