Being An Altar Server

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ATeutonicKnight

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I’ve always wanted to be an Altar Server (Especially now that I want to be a Priest), but we’re always traveling so I wouldn’t be able to make some weeks. Plus, for some reason I’m very nervous about bringing it up with my parents. What should I do?
 
I was able to be an alter server when I was in high school (when they finally let girls do it). I remember being kind of nervous the first few times I served, but then it didn’t bother me anymore.

As for the scheduling: at my church there was a person who was responsible to schedule the servers about 3 months out. We would let her know when we were going to be unavailable and she would schedule somebody else for that mass. At my church there were 3 alter servers per weekend mass. The week day masses were done by 1 or none.

I would definitly talk to your parents about it. I enjoyed doing it and I think that it makes the mass that much more meaningful.

Good luck!! 🙂
 
You may want to ask about serving at funerals. Helping to bury the dead is a corporal act of mercy.

My parish has an Arimathean Ministry, where we show up and serve at funerals, most of the time on one or two days notice. I may get an email on a Tuesday saying that there is a Funeral on Friday or something like that. If I am free, I go.

There are often many non-Catholics at funerals and it is a great way to show the beauty and reverence of the Catholic faith, and to show the family how much Catholics love each other.

Funeral Masses are very reverent, with incense, pall, holy water… The priests and deacons need help with all that hardware and you will be busy most of the Mass except for the homily. I betcha if you offered, the priest wouldn’t say no.

-Tim-
 
OscarsMama said:
I was able to be an alter server when I was in high school (when they finally let girls do it). I remember being kind of nervous the first few times I served, but then it didn’t bother me anymore.

As for the scheduling: at my church there was a person who was responsible to schedule the servers about 3 months out. We would let her know when we were going to be unavailable and she would schedule somebody else for that mass. At my church there were 3 alter servers per weekend mass. The week day masses were done by 1 or none.

I would definitly talk to your parents about it. I enjoyed doing it and I think that it makes the mass that much more meaningful.

Good luck!! 🙂
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I see. This is very cool. Although I don’t exactly agree with female altar servers (As the original thought behind it was to get boys close to the altar to see if they wanted to become Priests), thank you for your reply. It helped me a lot.

By the way, about your location, do you come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun and the hot springs blow, or do you just come from the land of the ice and snow?
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
By the way, about your location, do you come from the land of the ice and snow from the midnight sun and the hot springs blow, or do you just come from the land of the ice and snow?
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Just from the land of the ice and snow. New England, to be exact. So, it is still ice and snow, but no midnight sun or hot springs. 😉
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
I’ve always wanted to be an Altar Server (Especially now that I want to be a Priest), but we’re always traveling so I wouldn’t be able to make some weeks. Plus, for some reason I’m very nervous about bringing it up with my parents. What should I do?
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Ive been one for almost 11 years now. And I can tell you its really a blessing from God. Dont let your parents or your situation stop you from doing so.
 
Altar servers ideally shouldn’t be the same people every week in any case. As well, I don’t know about the Catholic Mass, but in Anglican parishes there are times when many more servers are needed, any high Mass for example or when a bishop visits. So if you were only occasionally available that might be an option.

Another possibility might be a mass on a week-day, maybe near your school or home.

When I was a university student I served at the chapel, and it was a great learning experience (and yes we had lots of vocations and the girls didn’t go off to be priests.)
 
Speak to your priest and find out about training and how servers are scheduled. Since you are at Mass anyway, there should be no problem with you being a server. You’ll need to arrive early (say 15 to minutes) to get into your cassock and help the priest set up. And then it takes a bit of time after to clean up from the Mass you served and get things ready for the next Mass if necessary. Usually my son is done with that 5-10 minutes after Mass. If there are several altar boys it goes faster of course.

Serving at daily Masses is a bit less since the gifts aren’t brought up from the back and there usually aren’t any extra “frills”. You may not be able to do that because of your school schedule though.

As another poster said, you can also be available for funerals or weddings. Servers are need for those and are often difficult for the boys who are not available Saturday afternoons.

God bless you for wanting to serve, it is a great help to our priests.
 
OscarsMama said:
Just from the land of the ice and snow. New England, to be exact. So, it is still ice and snow, but no midnight sun or hot springs. 😉
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Oh, okay.

That is a song reference to Led Zeppelin’s the Immigrant Song, so I just felt like being sarcastic for a moment. 😃
 
Mrs_Sally said:
Speak to your priest and find out about training and how servers are scheduled. Since you are at Mass anyway, there should be no problem with you being a server. You’ll need to arrive early (say 15 to minutes) to get into your cassock and help the priest set up. And then it takes a bit of time after to clean up from the Mass you served and get things ready for the next Mass if necessary. Usually my son is done with that 5-10 minutes after Mass. If there are several altar boys it goes faster of course.

Serving at daily Masses is a bit less since the gifts aren’t brought up from the back and there usually aren’t any extra “frills”. You may not be able to do that because of your school schedule though.

As another poster said, you can also be available for funerals or weddings. Servers are need for those and are often difficult for the boys who are not available Saturday afternoons.

God bless you for wanting to serve, it is a great help to our priests.
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I’m home schooled so this is not a problem. However, my parish is a little… un-traditional, so we don’t have daily Mass or any Mass on weekdays. We don’t even go to the local one. We go to a Church twenty-five miles away.
 
Bluegoat said:
When I was a university student I served at the chapel, and it was a great learning experience (and yes we had lots of vocations and the girls didn’t go off to be priests.)
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Well, to reply to your snide remark, there was never a problem with girls wanting to be Priests until we let girls become Altar servers. The original idea was for boys to get closer to the altar and help to see if they wanted to become Priests. We don’t need altar servers. They weren’t used before. It was just an idea to help vocations. Many women who have become schismatic from the Church say that what played a big part of that role was being an altar server.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
Well, to reply to your snide remark, there was never a problem with girls wanting to be Priests until we let girls become Altar servers.
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So, post hoc ergo clearly propter hoc, eh? I am no fan of altar girls, but when I look at the dotty old ladies in Roman Catholic WomenPriests (pictured below), I don’t anybody of an age such that they could have been serving as “altar girls” after permission was recognized in 1992. (In fact, they actually look like they all would have grown up and received their formation in the classic days of the TLM. Ergo . . . ?! ;))

 
MarkThompson said:
So, post hoc ergo clearly propter hoc, eh? I am no fan of altar girls, but when I look at the dotty old ladies in Roman Catholic WomenPriests (pictured below), I don’t anybody of an age such that they could have been serving as “altar girls” after permission was recognized in 1992. (In fact, they actually look like they all would have grown up and received their formation in the classic days of the TLM. Ergo . . . ?! ;))

http://www.romancatholicwomenpriests.org/images/2009episcopalordsTotalGroup.jpg
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I actually forgot about the feminist revolution, which caused a lot of this mess. I have no problem with equal rights for women, but it eventually went down to “We hate men!”, and that led to “We hate the Church! We don’t have equal rights!” This caused a lot of controversy, and it left the Catholic Church in shambles. Many women still hate the Church and are still manipulating others to hate it as well. If only they didn’t see it as “We think your inferior” to what it actually is: What the Catholic Church is allowed to actually do. It’s not about equal rights, it’s about the fact that Jesus chose only men to be his disciples, and this was written in stone with the Early Church Fathers, who spoke many times about this, and always had the same answer: It cannot be done.
 
Talk to your parish priest about being a server and also mention to him that you are also discerning a vocation to the priesthood. I am sure he will do his best to help you if mention both things. Many parishes are in need of servers especially for special Masses outside of the weekends like weddings, funerals, etc.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
Well, to reply to your snide remark, there was never a problem with girls wanting to be Priests until we let girls become Altar servers. The original idea was for boys to get closer to the altar and help to see if they wanted to become Priests. We don’t need altar servers. They weren’t used before. It was just an idea to help vocations. Many women who have become schismatic from the Church say that what played a big part of that role was being an altar server.
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Actually it wasn’t a snide comment, it was just a comment.

Your experience of this seems to be rather limited. Something you might want to consider is that inappropriately restricting women had a lot to do with why they were so ready to reject everything they were told by the Church about their role. The Catholic Church of the 1950’s was not the perfect thing some people seem to imagine - it had different problems than we see today, but it had problems.

You might find an interesting study to look at Quebec, one of the most strict Catholic societies in NA, up until they simply rejected the Church and became among the most secular. This was before Vat II and all those changes. Those who say that Vat II and losening up caused all the problems in the CC are barking up the wrong tree. If people no longer believe that the Church is justified in some of it’s teachings, they may well reject them all - and I would suggest that has a lot to do with the preponderance of middle-aged ladies wanting to be priests.

It’s very similar to the two types of parents that produce juvenile delinquent children: the non-involved and uncaring, and the super-strict.
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
I’ve always wanted to be an Altar Server (Especially now that I want to be a Priest), but we’re always traveling so I wouldn’t be able to make some weeks. Plus, for some reason I’m very nervous about bringing it up with my parents. What should I do?
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wait until a time you are prepared to make and meet the commitment to training and serving, sometimes waiting is a good thing. Meanwhile, work on improving communication with your parents. No kid should ever, ever, be nervous about bringing up any topic with his parents.
 
puzzleannie said:
wait until a time you are prepared to make and meet the commitment to training and serving, sometimes waiting is a good thing. Meanwhile, work on improving communication with your parents. No kid should ever, ever, be nervous about bringing up any topic with his parents.
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Being pregnant is a topic you should be nervous about when speaking to your parents. 😃
 
ATeutonicKnight said:
I’ve always wanted to be an Altar Server (Especially now that I want to be a Priest)
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Becoming a regular altar server is a step in the right direction when one feels called to the priesthood. One could even say it is part of the calling.

Remember that priests are encouraged to celebrate mass daily, so it would be good habit to serve often, as the Sacrifice of the Mass is at the center of the priest’s vocational duties. Also, the viewpoint given to a server is different and special. The server in a sense becomes an “extension” of the priest’s hands (eg. handling the cruets of water and wine) and at good parishes one even wears clerical garb, in the black cassock and white surplice.

This is why I get nervous about too many girl servers. :o
 
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