#213 Schweitzer on Solemnity

While reminiscing about growing up as a preacher's kid and missing hearing his father's sermons, Albert Schweitzer says the following,

"From the services in which I joined as a child I have taken with me into life a feeling for what is solemn, and a need for quiet self-recollection, without which I cannot realize the meaning of my life. I cannot, therefore, support the opinion of those who would not let children take part in grown-up people's services till they to some extent understand them. The important thing is not that they shall understand, but that they shall feel something of what is serious and solemn. The fact that the child sees his elders full of devotion, and has to feel something of their devotion himself, that is what gives the service its meaning for him."

-- Albert Schweitzer, The Light Within Us, p. 5

This feeling of solemnity, quiet, and devotion is why I really appreciate the first ten years of my life that I spent in the Catholic church.