Confirmation/service hours

[OrganistRob]

When I went through Confirmation Service hours, as well as the hours I had to do in High School, the reason things like altar serving did not count was because they did not want it to appear that I was attending Mass just for service hours. There are a lot of other areas in the Parish you can receive service hours. I sang in the choir, and while I did not get the hour we sang during Mass on Sunday, I did get hours for the mid-week rehearsal. I also helped the maintenance staff set up for Christmas and Easter services when there were a lot of flowers to water and set up for these services. Check with the office and see if there are any need for phone sitters and bulletin folders. Even simply offering to sweep up the altar after a wedding can get you a lot of hours really quickly. There are far more ways to get the hours at a parish than altar serving.

 

[puzzleannie]

as a response for parents and candidates (and we catechists) who question why “service” is a component of confirmation preparation at all:

Confirmation is all about service. We are baptized into the Church and called to serve from that moment. Confirmation anoints and confirms our baptism and releases the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the purpose of bringing the individual closer to Christ and his Church, and to build up the Church, in a word, for service. Service does not mean a log of hours on miscellaneous projects, it means a life lived at the service of Christ, beginning with evangelization, and doing that through all our choices and actions and manner of living.

Why are confirmation candidates asked to serve? Because they are breathing baptized Christians. The Christian life is fundamentally one of service. the rock bottom minimum for a D- Catholic should be an hour a week, outside worship owed to God in justice, of service to the Church and God’s poor. Does that mean everybody has to paint houses or serve in a soup kitchen every week? No there are literally hundreds of ways to serve. Even the incapacitated serve in offering up their sufferings in union with Christ and praying for others, and in fact this can be more productive than more active works.

If the candidates are not introduced to service, and moreover to the spirituality of stewardship in which service takes place, the attitude that all time, gifts, talents and works come from God and belong to God, they are being cheated by those who should be preparing them for Christian life.

 

[Donahuec]

Wow! Thank you everyone for responding.

One clarification: serving mass is the only type of service that does not count toward confirmation hours.

I understand the point that if a kid has already been serving (and in our parish it is only since the 6th grade), they should be doing something new as part of their confirmation hours. However, there are other forms of service that are ongoing that are not disallowed. My son is an active Boy Scout. As part of his troop, he has done any number of service projects since the 5th grade. All of that Scout service is specifically allowed.

The point I made to the DRE is that if we are trying to draw the children into their faith more deeply, serving at the altar is probably the best type of service. Isn’t the Eucharist supposed to be the source and summit of our lives as Catholics? How is sweeping the street after the parish festival acceptable service, but not serving at Mass?

Thanks again!