Do TLM Priests today have trouble getting servers?

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Do TLM priests today have any trouble getting servers for their weekday morning Masses in their parishes? When the Church has a school a schoolkid can serve the morning Masses. What about in the summer when the school is out. Boys aren’t the type who would want to wake up early and serve say a 7 30 AM Mass in the summer. What usually happens also for TLM places with no schools.

Also how do TLM priests today do their private Masses? Do they have servers?? If not what do they do?

Can someone help me on this?
 
Florida123 said:
Do TLM priests today have any trouble getting servers for their weekday morning Masses in their parishes? When the Church has a school a schoolkid can serve the morning Masses. What about in the summer when the school is out. Boys aren’t the type who would want to wake up early and serve say a 7 30 AM Mass in the summer. What usually happens also for TLM places with no schools.

Also how do TLM priests today do their private Masses? Do they have servers?? If not what do they do?

Can someone help me on this?
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In our chapel, there is a TLM in the morning at 715AM as well as two at 8AM at the school and then again at 11AM in the school.

The 7:15AM is always served by a rotation of gentlemen in the parish (I take Wednesdays, for instance). The two at school are served by high school boys (one is private and one is the school Mass). The 11AM is also served by students.

There is occasionally an additional private Mass at 7:15AM in the chapel offered by a visiting priest. If a Bishop is visiting, he would usually take the Mass on the high altar and the parish priest would offer a private Mass on a side altar.

In general, there is never a problem with servers for high or low Mass since most boys in the parish (perhaps 80 or so) can serve either type of Mass and there are also at least 20 adult men who also serve.

In any other parish I’ve been to, including the indult parishes, I have never known there to be anything but great enthusiasm from those men and boys anxious to know and serve the TLM.

As far as boys not wanting to wake up to serve in the summer, we have the opposite problem. Everyone wants to serve. I have found the TLM to have that effect on boys and men.
 
A priest ought not to say Mass without a sever, according to the rubrics of the Mass. If there is a grave cause (e.g., on a day of obligation for the priest to fulfill his own obligation or to allow a group of approximately 20 or more faithful to fulfill theirs who otherwise could not), the priest may say Mass without a server. In other words, simple Masses of devotion (private Masses or even parish Masses that are not on days of obligation) ought not to be offered without a server. This is routinely ignored by those who are unable to find servers or who don’t really want to put forth the effort to find or train servers, but it is an illegitimate custom.
 
Florida123 said:
Do TLM priests today have any trouble getting servers for their weekday morning Masses in their parishes? When the Church has a school a schoolkid can serve the morning Masses. What about in the summer when the school is out. Boys aren’t the type who would want to wake up early and serve say a 7 30 AM Mass in the summer. What usually happens also for TLM places with no schools.

Also how do TLM priests today do their private Masses? Do they have servers?? If not what do they do?

Can someone help me on this?
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The priest can say Mass alone, just as you can recite a litany alone giving all of the responses yourself. There was a thread recently about this. If there are people who can’t serve, he may ask all of them to do the responses or most likely, choose one man who can make his way with the Latin fairly well. The bells can also be rung from a pew. Being a convert, I never learned to serve, but I have rung the bells and made the responses before. Also, former altar boys who are now retired men can still serve Mass. I have seen this a lot as well.

Fortunately, we have altar boys coming faster than our sacristan can train them and many home-schooled so school does not mean they have to miss Mass. Lots and lots of little boys and almost 100% want to serve with some very capable older boys to help oversee the sacristy. On the other hand, the indult parish in our area doesn’t have enough of their own to have high Mass. They occasionally “borrow” the servers from our SSPX chapel and our sacristan when they want to have a high Mass.

PS: I just read what Integra Catholic wrote. I’ll check into it and probably find that he is right and I am wrong. Functionally, the priest can do it without a server. I did not know there was a legal difficulty.
 
If I went to a TLM church, I’d ask to be trained to become a server there. I served at my NO parish from third grade until I was 25. I miss being up on the altar something fierce.
 
There was a time when finding someone to serve mass was never a problem because there was only ONE mass. There was always someone in church who was or had been an alter boy at one time.

I remember my 70-something grandfather serving mass in Atlantic City when he was on vacation. For some reason there were no alter boys.

He taught me my Latin when I began training.
 
This week is going to be my first week altar serving! I am not doing anything yet, Just observing so I could get into the way of everything and learn. So I just sort of sit up there. I’m really excited though!
 
Not where I attend…

on very rare occasions where communication has broken down and the scheduled server has not appeared, one of the congregation will take up the baton so to speak…there is always a male who can do the honours.👍
 
If a server doesn’t turn up, it’s up to the MC or presiding priest to apply moral judo to males in the congregation and get a volunteer.

Actually, I think it can be an occasion of grace. Some good man might thereby be enthused to take a more active part in the Church.

The TLM: offers the best job (for a priest or deacon) or hobby (for a lay server or singer) ever! You’ll always be learning and it’s never dull.
 
not at the parish i go to for TLM it seems like they have more than enough. i would not be surprised if they said they had a waiting list for servers
 
Lycorth said:
Leave it to the SSPX 👍
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Haha, I was poking around their site, and I see that “Angelus Press” was actually founded by the Pulvermachers. Nice. Of course, if someone like, oh, Archbishop Bugnini had ties that close to people like that, you wouldn’t hear the end of it for a million years, now would you? 😉
 
MarkThompson said:
Haha, I was poking around their site, and I see that “Angelus Press” was actually founded by the Pulvermachers. Nice. Of course, if someone like, oh, Archbishop Bugnini had ties that close to people like that, you wouldn’t hear the end of it for a million years, now would you? 😉
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Fr. Carl Pulvermacher was a hard-working priest for 53 years before he passed away in 2006. He came from a family of nine children, three of whom became Capuchin priests. Fr. Carl Pulvermacher founded the Angelus Magazine in the late 70’s and continued as the editor to it and eventually the Angelus Press into the 1990’s.

Fr Pulvermacher was one of the kindest and holiest priests you would likely ever meet - a great confessor and a lover of both the Sacred and Immaculate Hearts of Christ and His Mother. It broke his heart that his brother (Lucien) went so far off the “deep end” into sedevacantism and ultimately into conclavism.

You snide remarks, Mark, were asinine to say the least.
 
MarkThompson said:
Haha, I was poking around their site, and I see that “Angelus Press” was actually founded by the Pulvermachers. Nice. Of course, if someone like, oh, Archbishop Bugnini had ties that close to people like that, you wouldn’t hear the end of it for a million years, now would you? 😉
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Like guiseppe said above, that was snide and uncalled for. Lucian went off the deep end but the rest of his family were sane Catholics.
 
Catholicben said:
Some boys don’t …
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When I was a server, I used to voluntarily wake up to serve a 7:00 am Mass, though when I was new to the acolyte service, I might have balked a little at doing one so early.

It’s hard to motivate boys, I suspect, because proper instruction about altar service isn’t provided (at least in NO churches). It’s just seen as an obligation; the awesome beauty and glory of being an altar server is rarely, if ever, impressed on boys - and then it has to compete with a world of video games or sleeping in. It’s always easier to be lazy and worldly than aggressively spiritual.
 
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