Before teaching for Scholé, I previously taught at another school, and one of my favorite traditions was the “morning circle.” My first grade class and I began our days circled around, going through a repertoire of poems, verses, and songs. This very enthusiastic choir sang out to “Shenandoah,” “Keep On the Sunny Side,” and almost the entire “Sound of Music” soundtrack while I played my guitar. We went from song to poetry: Robert Frost, Emily Dickinson, and many others. The last item in our circle was our morning verse.
Even now, I treasure those memories of my first grade morning circle. However, from the very beginning, I yearned to bring a depth to the circle that I could not. I wanted that morning circle to be not just a “nice” time, not merely a “helpful routine,” but a way to start the day by offering up our whole beings to God, asking for His mercy and His goodness to be upon us. I wanted to sing “songs, hymns, and spiritual songs,” and to recite creeds and prayers. I wanted more than a routine; I wanted a liturgy, a spiritual and sacred habit, upon which to rest our minds for the day before us.
What is a school liturgy?
A school liturgy is a short, fixed order of prayer, Scripture, song, art or silence that opens a school day or a single class the same way each time. Like the liturgy of the Church, it works by repetition: what students do together, day after day, slowly shapes what they notice, desire and love.
In Catholic schools the phrase often means something more particular, a school Mass or prayer service for the whole student body planned around the feasts of the Church year. Families in our Aquinas House of Studies know that sense well. This essay uses the word in its wider meaning: the daily classroom habit that turns a room of students toward God before the lesson begins.
Why a liturgy for students and scholars?
That has been one of the great joys I have found at Scholé. Though I can’t gather my students in a physical circle, I begin each of my classes with a liturgy that fills my own soul each and every day. But why liturgy in the classroom? The case has been made for liturgy in the sanctuary as a place of worship, but why a place of learning? Why a place of mathematics and grammar and writing and literature?
In his book You Are What You Love, James K.A. Smith writes, “It is crucial for us to recognize that our ultimate loves, longings, desires, and cravings are learned.” And again he says, “Because if you are what you love and if love is a virtue, then love is a habit.” Those things that make us who we are (the things we love, long for, desire) don’t happen by chance or by accident. They happen by practice.
Perhaps the greatest mistake we make with children is the thought that “the good will rub off on them.” Put them in the right school, the right activities, the right youth groups and all the good influences will become part of them.
I don’t think it works like that.
Everywhere around us, adults and children alike, are what Smith calls “rival liturgies.” Some liturgies are spiritually void, such as the ones I experienced at the other school. Others are actively against the true worship our souls crave. Yet all rival liturgies are easy to adopt, and they exist (they flourish) even in the “right” places. So rather than focus on finding just the right influences, perhaps we should focus on creating a way of life wherein the right longings and the right desires are nurtured. And the only way to do that is by creating habits.
How a liturgy forms our habits
When we participate in a liturgy, we are creating these habits. We are creating for ourselves modes of operation, pathways of thought, and postures of the heart by which we carry out our days. What we must realize is that liturgies are happening whether or not we sanction them; they are becoming ingrained in us whether or not we intended that. And so we must take an active approach. We must actively form liturgies for ourselves and for our children and for our students where we learn the best of loves and longings and desires.
The goal of every liturgy is to put on Christ
We must remember, though, what exactly is the goal of liturgy; for it is not just to make “better people” or “better students.” Dietrich von Hildebrand expresses it this way:
Thus the deepest and most organic transformation of man in the spirit of Christ is found precisely at that point where we purely respond to values, in the giving up of ourselves to God’s glory, in the glorifying of God performed as divine service, in the abiding Coram ipso (in standing before Him), in the rejoicing of God’s existence, in the Gloria Domini (the glory of the Lord), and in the magnalia Dei (the great deeds of the Lord). As we pray and sacrifice liturgically — and this means through Christ, with Christ, and in Christ—glorifying God, we “put on Christ (induere Christum).”
Our goal in every liturgy is “to put on Christ”: to thank Him for who He is, to confess who we are not, and to beseech Him for more of Himself. We participate in this life of Christ to which He has called us, and by so doing, conform who we are, and what we love, to who He is.
Classroom liturgy activities, from artwork to the Trisagion
But what does this look like in a classroom, and specifically, in a virtual classroom? In my “classroom,” as students enter, I display a piece of artwork along with guiding questions, poems, or quotes that harmonize with our focus of the week. As they are contemplating this, I have classical or sacred music playing (some of my favorites have been Rutter’s “Open Thou My Eyes”, Lauridsen’s “O Magnum Mysterium,” Tallis’ “If Ye Love Me,” and Morricone’s “Gabriel’s Oboe”). This prelude lasts for about three minutes, and then we open with prayer and Scripture reading, each corresponding to the season of the church year. Finally, I sing the Trisagion before we begin class.
Does a classroom liturgy take too much time?
Sometimes I wonder if this takes too much of my class time. Other times I wonder if I should be doing more. Often I wonder if this makes any difference in the lives of these middle schoolers.
But then I think how “Holy God, holy and mighty, holy, immortal One, have mercy on us” will be stuck in their heads as they’re playing outside and they’ll thank God for His mercy; I’ll imagine how “preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties” will enter their minds when doubt comes their way, and it will direct their thoughts; I’ll think of how they’ll remember the stillness that comes with the first notes of Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli Kyrie, and they’ll be quieted.
These habits, these stuck-in-your-head moments, far from being trivial, ultimately make up what we practice, and what we practice makes up what we love, and what we love makes us who we are. Liturgical learning should be more than a pedagogical strategy; it should be a habit which nurtures students into putting on Christ and abiding before Him.
A simple classroom liturgy you can borrow
The pattern described above can be kept in any classroom, online or around a kitchen table. It takes only a few minutes, in the same order each day:
- As students arrive, show a work of art with a guiding question, a poem or a quotation tied to the week’s focus.
- Play sacred or classical music for about three minutes while they look and settle.
- Open with a prayer suited to the season of the church year.
- Read a short passage of Scripture for the same season.
- Sing the Trisagion or a hymn the students know.
- Begin the lesson.
Keep the order fixed and let the content change with the seasons. The fixed form gives students something to rest in, and the changing art, music and readings give them something new to notice. Teachers who want to go deeper into the craft of classical teaching will find courses at ClassicalU, our sister program for educators.
Every class at Scholé Academy is taught live, online, by a real teacher, and some of our instructors open their classes with a liturgy like this one. Browse the full course catalog, or see how middle school students learn in this rhythm.
Prayers for students and scholars
Many teachers and parents look for written prayers to open the school day. Douglas McKelvey’s Every Moment Holy includes a well-loved liturgy “For Students & Scholars,” and a later volume, The Work of the People, includes “Before Teaching” by Allie Osborn. Both are worth owning; the Every Moment Holy contents list them with many others. The older prayers below are free to use, and each comes from one of the traditions of our Houses of Studies, held together by the faith we share.
The Trisagion
The “thrice-holy” hymn of the Eastern Church, sung at the start of many Orthodox services and at the start of the class described above:
Holy God, Holy Mighty, Holy Immortal, have mercy on us.
A prayer before study from St. Thomas Aquinas
St. Thomas Aquinas is said to have prayed his Creator ineffabilis before he studied, wrote or preached, and Pope Pius XI included it in his 1923 encyclical Studiorum Ducem. It closes with a petition every student can make his own:
Ingressum instruas, progressum dirigas, egressum compleas.
Teach me how to begin, guide me as I go on, and bring my work to completion.
A collect for the holy Scriptures
From the Book of Common Prayer (1662), the collect for the Second Sunday in Advent, a fitting prayer before any reading:
Blessed Lord, who hast caused all holy Scriptures to be written for our learning: Grant that we may in such wise hear them, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest them, that by patience and comfort of thy holy Word, we may embrace, and ever hold fast the blessed hope of everlasting life, which thou hast given us in our Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen.
The line quoted above, “preserve us from faithless fears and worldly anxieties,” comes from a prayer by the Anglican scholar William Bright (1824 to 1901), which also suits the start of a school day.
Frequently asked questions
What is a classroom liturgy?
It is a school liturgy kept at the scale of one class: a few minutes of prayer, Scripture, music or art that opens the lesson in the same order every day. The repetition is the point, since it forms habits of attention and gratitude as well as settling the room.
How long should a classroom liturgy take?
A few minutes is enough. The liturgy described above runs about three minutes of artwork and music as students arrive, followed by a prayer, a short Scripture reading, and one sung hymn, all before the lesson proper begins. Regularity matters more than length; a brief liturgy kept every day forms more than a long one kept now and then.
Can families do a classroom liturgy at home?
Yes, and the kitchen table may be the most natural place for it. The same elements adapt easily: a piece of art propped against the fruit bowl, a recording of sacred music, a psalm or a collect, a hymn the family already knows, and a prayer tied to the season of the church year. Keep it short, keep the order the same each day, and let the children take turns reading or choosing the music.
What is a good prayer before teaching?
A short prayer the class can learn by heart works best. The Trisagion, St. Thomas Aquinas’s prayer before study and the Book of Common Prayer’s collect for the holy Scriptures all fit well, and Every Moment Holy’s “Before Teaching” was written for exactly this moment. Praying the same words each day lets them settle into memory.
How do you start a homeschool morning liturgy?
Start small: one prayer, one psalm or reading and one hymn, kept in the same order every morning before lessons. Once that habit holds, add a piece of art or a poem. The answer above on keeping a classroom liturgy at home gives a simple pattern for the kitchen table.
