In my old St. Andrew’s Daily Missal — or rather, my reprint of the 1945 edition, which I love both because of its superb commentaries and because its calendar and Holy Week match up with the customs of an increasing number of traditional parishes nowadays — we find the following heading on p. 1821: “The Burial of Little Children.” The commentary reads: "When a baptized child dies before reaching the age of reason, it goes at once to heaven to praise God and enjoy Him with the angels. Wherefore the Gloria Patri of the Psalms is not replaced by the Requiem aeternam, and the Mass is the Votive Mass of the Angels, with white vestments and Gloria in excelsis." This custom bespeaks a resolutely and audaciously supernatural perspective: when all are mourning the loss of a citizen of earth, the Church rejoices in the gaining of a saint in heaven.
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