“It was the first day of the Feast of Thin Bread”

Over at Corpus Christi Watershed, Fr. David Friel has a good article enumerating just is wrong with Children's Liturgy of the Word, and the Lectionary for Masses with Children, and their use (and as far as I am concerned, what is wrong with the Directory for Masses with Children all the hoopla that has proceeded from it .)

At my old parish, his first one, The corny send-off rituals & banal music that accompany the children’s exit,  was the only one I had any control over, and I did take care of it right away, replacing the circus-worthy ditty that nobody sang anyway, with  a hymn about gathering for the Word, which actually, (oh, horrors!!!!!!) referenced the Fear of the Lord.

But seriously, to make my point I have only ever needed to ask this:

Has ANYONE, in the entire history of our country ever been so stupid as to think thought that kindergartners, or even pre-schoolers needed to be taught to say,

"I promise, honest! to always be on the same side as my 

country's flag and to my county, which has a fair way of 

deciding things, one place that can't come apart, where 

everybody can pretty much do what they want within reason, 

and we all get a square deal,"

?

NO!

We teach them,

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of 

America and to the Republic for which it stands, one 

nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

(I left out "under God" since it was an addition, AFAIK, and so that you would know this is me being curmudgeonly, and hasn't really anything to do with religion )

Although they have no idea whatever of the meaning of "allegiance," for instance, we teach them the pledge as it is, and they learn the words by heart, (in every sense of the word, hopefully,) and eventually come to understand them, (also, now that I think of it, hopefully.)

Feast of Thin Bread.... sheesh. Could have been worse, could have been "Crispy Bread Holiday," I guess.