Repairing someone else’s torn garment is a good thing. Wanting to repair something which isn’t even torn to begin with, or seeing someone else’s resplendent garments as rags, maybe not so.
My experience is once the girls start, the boys stop. Altar Serving is a type of preparation for possible vocation, therefore I think altar girls are unhelpful.
Bet I know who you’ve been listening to.
One thing to note though, is that he restricts Masses in the Vatican ( St, Peter’s, St. John Lateran and his own personal chapel, to only boys
Well said, True. People considering conversion need to acquire the mind of the Church by focusing on the Gospels rather than on caustic YouTube personalities.Bet I know who you’ve been listening to.
Seriously, from one convert to another, keep your eye on the prize. Your first goal is to be received into the One, Holy, Apostolic Church and from then on to move towards greater holiness and union with God.
Attend a parish where you feel comfortable and focus on your life with Christ.
If you look at some of the things that are happening in the Church, you will get discouraged. Remember that people are not perfect. Compared to what was happening in the seventies, the Church appears to be returning to a lot of its old traditions. Take heart in that.
Read the life of the Saints, pray regularly, attend mass as frequently as you can.
Welcome home!
Haha, awesome! (It counts) And thank you very much for the links you have posted.I’ve been to the Cathedral of Nice, does that count?
Bet I know who you’ve been listening to.
Seriously, from one convert to another, keep your eye on the prize. Your first goal is to be received into the One, Holy, Apostolic Church and from then on to move towards greater holiness and union with God.
Attend a parish where you feel comfortable and focus on your life with Christ.
If you look at some of the things that are happening in the Church, you will get discouraged. Remember that people are not perfect. Compared to what was happening in the seventies, the Church appears to be returning to a lot of its old traditions. Take heart in that.
Read the life of the Saints, pray regularly, attend mass as frequently as you can.
Welcome home!
You’re right. I suppose I am getting a bit ahead of myself here. I just noted it when I was browsing the parish website and it unsettled me, and so I came here to see if my feelings were unfounded or not. It’s not a hardline issue it seems, but it’s also not one that has zero rules of sorts. So I’ve learned a lot and as such I’m no longer feeling like it’s something I need to confront the parish priest about. Might come up in RCIA, but it’s definitely not a deal breaker now that I know it’s not a direct breach.With all due respect, you need a bit of humility, and what I mean by that is an understanding of your place in the order of Christ’s kingdom.
Look at this language. God placed the priest in a position of authority over you, not the other way around. One does not lecture a priest, or presume to tell a priest about Canon Law and official Church teaching. One asks questions of a priest. “Arming” yourself is the language of weaponry, war, and of conflict and confrontation. We are the Church Militant, but that doesn’t mean we are the Militant Church.
As you note, the Church while herself infallible is made up of fallible human beings. The liturgy will never be perfect. There will be simple inadvertent errors, disobedience, willful neglect, simple negligence, laziness, breach of the rules, etc. It is because we are like this that we need the Church to bring our Saviour to us who in fact came to redeem all our sins, these included.
I think that it is an excellent suggestion The prize is not being accepted in the Church and becoming a Catholic, the prize is being a Catholic thus doing God’s will. There is a great CAF thread that people should re-read from time to time:
“Could have” does not equal “interested in,” “want to,” or “are trained to.”
Women’s ordination is exactly why I was initially upset as well. While I am confident that will never happen, I would not be surprised if female altar servers were cited as a reason for it [women’s ord.]- it certainly evokes a priestly connotation to me, that’s for sure.
Just because female altar server might be mentioned as a reason that does not imply that they are a reason. People would just use that logical fallacy to avoid digging deeper into the source of the problem. My impression that people that fret about the sex of altar servers usually do not have a proper understanding of vocations to the holy orders. Just read what the pope recently said about what is hindering vocations to the holy orders and you will see that is not about female altar servers. First we should focus on the big issue and only after that we should look at the small ones, once it made sense to have only altar boys and hopefully it will make sense again in the future but for now it is almost a non issue. It is almost like fretting about the possibility of gangrene in a toe without even thinking about dealing with the diabetes in an individual.
Well, I’m certainly not going to stop her. Jesus did say not to prevent children from coming to Him. I am just worried about the boys as they are more tricky when it comes to the faith. I’m not too worried about the girls. We are running low on priestly vocations after all, though certainly women religious have declined as well, although not as sharply.I am the father of 2 altar servers - my son is 15, and my daughter is 13. I am also involved in the training of altar servers in the parish.
As mentioned previously in this thread, boys and girls of this age are quite different (in general) when committing to altar serving. Having my son altar serve is like pulling teeth. He is still scheduled to altar serve a couple times a month, but he would rather not if he had a choice.
My daughter, on the other hand, would serve every week if possible, and she checks before every Mass we attend to see if there are enough altar servers present so she can serve if a scheduled altar server does not show up.
From the altar server training that I run, I can confirm, as a previous poster mentioned, the girls are much more organized, timely, etc. Most of the boys are there because they have to be. The girls truly seem to want to be there.
Again, these are generalities, and will not be true for all.
My daughter couldn’t wait to become an altar server, and she has truly blossomed into a wonderful Catholic girl. For example: when she was in the 4th grade at our local Catholic School, she had befriended an older nun who was extremely active in the missions. My daughter, after receiving nearly $100 for her birthday gifts from family, wanted to give it all to the missions. We talked about it, how noble it was for her to think that way, etc. We also mentioned that the money was given to her for her to get something for herself; but if she wanted to give it to the missions, she could. She ended up settling on giving the missions half of her money, and saving the other half for something she may want. The sister she befriended asked out family to attend the Diocesan ceremony where her school was awarded the top prize for fundraising for the missions for the 8th year in a row. My daughter was glowing throughout the day.
My son would never have even considered the missions. Different people. Different attitudes. Different priorities.
Back to altar serving - the Pope said OK. If the Bishop says OK and the Pastor says OK, and the priest offering Mass says OK, who are we to say “No”? Why is this such a bad thing? Sure altar serving can lead to vocations in boys. Most of the vocations for boys in our Diocese are from boys who were altar servers. That seems to make logical sense though, since most boys that are “good” Catholics are altar servers at that age; whether they all want to be or not
My daughter know full well she cannot become a Priest or Deacon. That doesn’t mean that she shouldn’t be an altar server. She gets truly excited to attend Mass when she is serving, and she looks forward to the possibility of an absent server when she is not scheduled. She looks forward to serving in any way possible. We have numerous past female altar servers now serving as Lectors in our parish.
Isn’t that what we want from our young people - the desire to serve God and His People. I am sure that altar serving has made her MUCH closer to God and her faith!
Religious vocations and vocations to the holy orders are completely different vocations.
Funny, I was thinking the same thing.