Altar Servers

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Curious

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I really like the local parish here, but there’s something that grates on my nerves and for heaven’s sake, I’m protestant!

The altar servers at this particular church don’t pay any attention to what they’re doing. The priest is always having to turn the prayer book thingie to the right page and point to the thing they’re supposed to hand him. Is this normal? They might be relatively new at it, so maybe I should shut up. Somehow I get the feeling they’re not new at it at all.

Or maybe they’ve had an off day. I’ve only been 3 times to this parish, but it’s happened all three times.

I don’t go much, but when I do, I want to throttle the young’uns and tell em to pay attention. (am i turning into a crabby old lady?)
 
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Curious:
I really like the local parish here, but there’s something that grates on my nerves and for heaven’s sake, I’m protestant!

The altar servers at this particular church don’t pay any attention to what they’re doing. The priest is always having to turn the prayer book thingie to the right page and point to the thing they’re supposed to hand him. Is this normal? They might be relatively new at it, so maybe I should shut up. Somehow I get the feeling they’re not new at it at all.

Or maybe they’ve had an off day. I’ve only been 3 times to this parish, but it’s happened all three times.

I don’t go much, but when I do, I want to throttle the young’uns and tell em to pay attention. (am i turning into a crabby old lady?)
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Frankly some people who serve, and those who are responsible to train them simply don’t care and are many times ignorant themselves.

If you were a Catholic I would suggest that you talk with your pastor and offer to take-over the function of training altar servers…
 
I don’t know about your parish, but in mine this is the time of year when we get the new servers. Although they are trained, they get so nervous that they sometimes forget what should happen next. As a deacon, I am there to make sure the other ministers (and the priest) are able to pray the Mass. Consequently, I’m the one that does the pointing, the hinting, the cajoling, and whatever else is necessary to get them to serve correctly – all the time trying to not come down on them so hard that they feel they have to quit. It can be a delicate balancing act.

Deacon Ed
 
I second all that Deacon Ed says. I have one Server that has ADD, but helping at Mass has been a tremendous blessing for him, says his family. This has actually helped in his treatment. He has become very religious. In this case, I don’t mind having to remind him to get the book Etc.
 
When I was an altar boy, eons ago, we received excellent training and were extremely well drilled/rehearsed. But we never were told to have the pages of the books turned to the right places. The priests did that themselves. And sometimes they had trouble finding them. If it took awhile and the ribbon wasn’t set right, that was their fault not ours.
 
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chicago:
When I was an altar boy, eons ago, we received excellent training and were extremely well drilled/rehearsed. But we never were told to have the pages of the books turned to the right places. The priests did that themselves. And sometimes they had trouble finding them. If it took awhile and the ribbon wasn’t set right, that was their fault not ours.
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Funny, that hasn’t changed after all these eons either 😛
 
Sometimes people simply cannot serve. They just don’t understand it. I am a sacristan at a campus chapel and one of our duties is to train servers. Every once in awhile there are some who simply cannot understand and remember what they need to do. I don’t know if they are nervous, or maybe it’s just not their kind of thing.

matt
 
I remember I had to serve for year at morning mass before I could be scheduled for Sunday mass and then again a year at Sunday mass before I could be scheduled for a wedding or a funeral.

God Bless
 
I served Mass many times a week for a long time growing up. It was for a convent. We got informed if we didn’t kneel correctly, etc… sang too loud. I look at some of the altarpeople today and think they would have been quite informed on what they did wrong.
Maybe the reason today that I can take quite critical insight and not feel offended, and learn from it?
It isn’t hard to serve Mass. We even did all the bells. Never missed them.
Even the process of ringing the bells was always open to criticism.
We learned how to silence them correctly, hold them correctly. Yeah, overboard. But I think this helped me in the long run.
No task should be slimmed or short-cut. Do the best you can, follow orders as told. Of course, I went to Catholic High School as well.

I look up on the Altar and I’d just like to replace 70% of the people assisting mass.
I thought about going to daily mass and serving for the priest. It’s awesome to do, and he’d appreciate not having to say mass and play choreographer as well. I could replace every kid on that altar during the weekend masses by myself.
Of course, we sang the responses, prayers, creed, etc… aloud. oh yes, aloud. Not as loud as the priest, but loud enough to be heard. It was fun. I’m glad I lived it.
 
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