Altar server clothing

  • Thread starter Thread starter CFI
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Phemie said:
And with chasubles as witnessed in my parish on a regular basis (Crocs too).
Click to expand...
I only said that, if some clothing is seen as inappropriate, the liturgical vest cannot be the way to change.
However I have no problems with flip-flops.
 
CFI said:
I only said that, if some clothing is seen as inappropriate, the liturgical vest cannot be the way to change.
However I have no problems with flip-flops.
Click to expand...
Logic says so, but I think human nature says otherwise. That the parish keeps albs for the children serving, and goes to the trouble of keeping those in beautiful condition, as much so as for the priest’s vestments, speaks to the importance of the service. It says, “This is a service about which we are willing to go to some trouble, and we expect you to trouble yourselves to dress accordingly, or else do not serve.”

We teach the kids that they should dress as if they were serving every Sunday, not just because they may be needed if someone does not show up, but because those who serve at the altar become a model for others, whether or not they are at the altar at a particular Mass. The kids are also encouraged to practice the deportment proper for a server at every Mass, participating actively, not slouching, not gawking around at everything except the altar. Again, this puts them in the habit of proper behavior, but also reminds them that people, especially other kids, know who they are, in the alb or out, and that others are inspired when their behavior is just as good in the alb as it is out. The kids respond to that.

I think that if the servers and their families show up in their Sunday best every week, it has an effect on parish dress in general. People respond seriously to an event that others are taking seriously, but few want to take it upon themselves to up the community dress code. I think we’re in a time that people actually want to add solemnity to the occasion of Mass, too, when more formal clothing is not seen as an affectation. People want that now. They have come up to our kids and commented on how nice they look, and how they like that at Mass.

PS No, we don’t try to institute a dress code for families, just the servers. That just seems to be the way it works, a lot of the time.
 
However I have no problems with flip-flops.
Click to expand...
There are different situations, but I have no problems if a child attend the church wearing flip-flops during summertime.
 
CFI said:
There are different situations, but I have no problems if a child attend the church wearing flip-flops during summertime.
Click to expand...
What can’t be helped can’t be helped, but even in climates where sandals are properly worn for solemn occasions, there are sandals and then there are sandals.

A young person old enough to serve is old enough to follow or dispense with clothing guidelines in the same way as adult properly would under the same circumstances.
 
CFI said:
There are different situations, but I have no problems if a child attend the church wearing flip-flops during summertime.
Click to expand...
Even if my son WANTED to wear flip-flops (which he hates), he’d never get them past the chaplain… a retired Army colonel! Black dress shoes, shined!
 
EasterJoy said:
What can’t be helped can’t be helped, but even in climates where sandals are properly worn for solemn occasions, there are sandals and then there are sandals.

A young person old enough to serve is old enough to follow or dispense with clothing guidelines in the same way as adult properly would under the same circumstances.
Click to expand...
Probably I was too much in Africa and India for these differences.
 
This is another reason I started going to a different church altogether. The altar servers (male and female ) looked slovenly and dirty the majority of the time. You could see their “hip hop” clothing underneath the “albs” they wear and many of them wore shoes with no socks. This was not a poor parish by any means.

In my day, we wouldn’t have dreamed of showing up to serve Mass looking like that. We weren’t even allowed to wear sneakers on the altar…only clean shined dress shoes.
We wore the traditional black cassock and white surplice. We were responsible for keeping them clean, as well. (Each of us had our own cassock and surplice which a generous parishioner sewed for us free of charge…we just paid for the fabric.)

I don’t care for the albs they wear now. What is wrong with the traditional cassock and surplice ?
 
CFI said:
Probably I was too much in Africa and India for these differences.
Click to expand...
There are climates, including the one Our Lord saw fit to live in, where sensible people would not dream of wearing more on their feet than safety required. There is nothing whatsoever irreverent about that.
 
Wow… their regular clothing? I bet they don’t dress up for Mass!

Robes are practical. Personally, I’d rather have wine or water spilled on a robe than on my best church clothes! (It has happened to me!)
 
spellinggirl said:
Wow… their regular clothing? I bet they don’t dress up for Mass!

Robes are practical. Personally, I’d rather have wine or water spilled on a robe than on my best church clothes! (It has happened to me!)
Click to expand...
Albs are not worn by servers to protect street clothes, and should be more carefully kept from being soiled than street clothes. They are worn as a reminder of our baptism. Similarly, cassock and surplice are symbolic of an office, not street-clothes protectors.

Wearing an alb will bring us to recall this prayer from the baptismal rite:
***N., you have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ.
See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity.
With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven. ***

Likewise, other clothing particular to serving at the altar are reminders of the dignity and a particular aspect of the service. This is why deacons and priests do not wear the same vestments. Each has its own meaning, particular to the office of the one wearing it.

This is kind of what this whole thread is about: When, if ever, should lay people who temporarily give service belonging to the office of an installed minister, wear the clothing that goes with it? Is the clothing proper to the service, or proper to the permanent office?

This is also why EMsHC generally do NOT wear an alb, even though an alb signifies baptism and EMsHC are always chosen from among the baptised. It is being made clear that this particular service to the altar is extraordinary, that the EMHC is assisting only, and that they are in no way laying claim to any office proper to the altar. With children and young people who are clearly too young for ordination, that much is clear, so the alb may be used without confusion.
 
I am amazed by what seems to bother people.

And then we wonder why people choose not to come to the Catholic Church.

Is it any wonder why – when they would come into contact with so many individuals who are more concerned about what people wear than that fact that they are there at church.

I believe that for many of you – Christ himself as he was dressed wouldn’t be welcomed in your parishes.
 
neiacatholic said:
I am amazed by what seems to bother people.

And then we wonder why people choose not to come to the Catholic Church.

Is it any wonder why – when they would come into contact with so many individuals who are more concerned about what people wear than that fact that they are there at church.

I believe that for many of you – Christ himself as he was dressed wouldn’t be welcomed in your parishes.
Click to expand...
Maybe. But maybe Christ himself cares whether people presume on his mercy with the attitudes they bring into church, too:

“*But when the king came in to meet the guests he saw a man there not dressed in a wedding garment. He said to him, ‘My friend, how is it that you came in here without a wedding garment?’ But he was reduced to silence. Then the king said to his attendants, ‘Bind his hands and feet, and cast him into the darkness outside, where there will be wailing and grinding of teeth.’ Many are invited, but few are chosen.” *Matt. 22:11-14

This is not about excluding people based on clothing. No one has said that if an altar server cannot afford proper clothes that clothes should not be provided. Far from it, for the torn jeans some wear are far more expensive than plain slacks that would fulfill the dress code. (Let’s not get started with the shoes with flashing lights.) The truth is, you will find poor children in Africa who make a sacrifice to come to school, let alone to Mass, in clothing appropriate to the privelege of the occasion, while rich children in our parishes make no effort to care about what they wear anywhere, but dress only to please themselves.

It is about attitude. There are times, my friend, when the choice of what exterior clothes to wear betrays an interior attitude. Many kids find that their attitude changes for the better when they comply with the dress code, because they can feel with their bodies that they are doing something worthy of respect. Don’t poo-poo that.
 
Now we are getting to the very meat of this whole question—attitude.

The attitude or the disposition of mind and will must not be—let us bring God down to our mundane, cultural secular mindset in regards to our disposition when entering God’s house of prayer and partaking in the very Life of His Church, the Sacraments.
It is our duty of love to bring our minds and wills to the realization that giving Christ, the Lord of Lords, the King of kings the best and most reverent disposition by word and action, not for His sake, but for our sake.
It may be true that the Lord doesn’t need it, but the fact is that as the servants (slaves) of the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords, we are duty bound, out of love, to show our Christian family that we do enter the Holy House of God with awe and reverence which is a sign of our love and respect due Him.

If we are not able to do what is right and proper in little things, what will become of what is right and proper in bigger things?
 
\I don’t care for the albs they wear now. What is wrong with the traditional cassock and surplice ?\

**Albs are traditional, too.

In other words, the tradition is BIGGER than just what you remember about cassock and surplice.**
 
EasterJoy said:
Albs are not worn by servers to protect street clothes, and should be more carefully kept from being soiled than street clothes. They are worn as a reminder of our baptism. Similarly, cassock and surplice are symbolic of an office, not street-clothes protectors.

Wearing an alb will bring us to recall this prayer from the baptismal rite:
***N., you have become a new creation, and have clothed yourself in Christ.
See in this white garment the outward sign of your Christian dignity.
With your family and friends to help you by word and example, bring that dignity unstained into the everlasting life of heaven. ***

Likewise, other clothing particular to serving at the altar are reminders of the dignity and a particular aspect of the service. This is why deacons and priests do not wear the same vestments. Each has its own meaning, particular to the office of the one wearing it.

This is kind of what this whole thread is about: When, if ever, should lay people who temporarily give service belonging to the office of an installed minister, wear the clothing that goes with it? Is the clothing proper to the service, or proper to the permanent office?

This is also why EMsHC generally do NOT wear an alb, even though an alb signifies baptism and EMsHC are always chosen from among the baptised. It is being made clear that this particular service to the altar is extraordinary, that the EMHC is assisting only, and that they are in no way laying claim to any office proper to the altar. With children and young people who are clearly too young for ordination, that much is clear, so the alb may be used without confusion.
Click to expand...
Not to derail this thread even more 😉 but having EMHCs wear their regular clothes without albs hopefully means that they are coming straight from the pews to assist as needed and that they are not vesting before Mass and sitting in the sanctuary or special seating as if they were indeed some kind of supernumerary clergy.
 
Mrs_Sally said:
Not to derail this thread even more 😉 but having EMHCs wear their regular clothes without albs hopefully means that they are coming straight from the pews to assist as needed and that they are not vesting before Mass and sitting in the sanctuary or special seating as if they were indeed some kind of supernumerary clergy.
Click to expand...
Right. When servers are chosen from among the young men and mature boys or from among the young people in general, it is for the positive reason that doing so encourages priestly vocations among boys or devotion to the Mass among the young. In that case, vesting with the alb is proper because the young were not chosen because of the “negative reason” that an installed acolyte was not available, but for a positive reason.

EMsHC, by contrast, are chosen among the laity for what I would call a negative reason: there aren’t enough ordinary ministers available. Now, they may be asked to sit together in some special part of the church in order to fulfill their function in a more orderly fashion–a shortage of ordinary ministers is not something that is normally a surprise sprung on the priest ten minutes before Mass starts–but it is well to continue to treat the situation as extraordinary, in terms of the whether Sunday street clothes suffice. I think that the street clothes better communicate the message that there is a shortage of clergy, lest we become so accustomed to the shortage that it does not seem to be a problem. Even though service as a EMHC very commonly has the positive effect of increasing devotion to the Eucharist, the practice is not to be used when ordinary ministers are available.
 
I think that albs should be worn nto just to remind the children of the respect that they should have of what is going on on teh alter, but also not to distract the rest fo the congregation. However, when albs are not available, I think it is ok to wear normal church clothes (decent). Having been in several situations when albs were not available, I’ve learned to focus on the mass… and not the vestments of the alter servers 😃 And could someone link me to a thread that discusses having only boy alter servers?

God Bless!
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top