EMHCs but no altar servers

[John_Lilburne]

I another thread some described how there were EMHCs at a Mass, but no altar servers. I often see it myself. No altar server, but Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. Altar severs are clearly required by the Roman Missal.

EMHCs are optional in almost any situation: I mean they are used on the basis of the extra time Communion will take without them, and the priest’s judgement of how long is too long.

The altar sever is required if the priest is on his own. If there is a deacon or concelebrant, they can do the task of the altar server.

Tasks required by the altar server. From the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) approved for the USA, which can be accessed from romanrite.com/girm.html :

“139. … An acolyte or other lay minister arranges the corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the Missal upon the altar.”
“141. At the altar the priest accepts the paten with the bread.”
Present the cruets, as I wrote above, GIRM n. 142.
Pouring water on the priest’s hands: “145. … the priest washes his hands standing at the side of the altar and, as the minister pours the water, says quietly, Lava me, Domine (Lord, wash away my iniquity).”

The above seem to me to be required. It could be argued that other things are more general, preferred, presenting the book, being the entrance procession.

So why so many EMHCs so few altar servers? Do lay people volunteer for one, but not the other? Is being an altar sever childish, an EMHC adult? Is it about service? Is is about vestments? Too much training for altar servers?

 

[Eilish_Maura]

Where exactly does anything describe altar serves as MANDATORY for a Mass?

Indicating where they may play a role is not the same thing.

 

[Deacon_Ed]

While altar servers are encouraged, they are by no means required (priests may still celebrate Mass by themselves).

Deacon Ed

 

[thomasf]

We regularly don’t have altar servers. One of the adult EMHC’s helps during the consecration. They have problems getting kids in our parish to help out. We don’t have a huge population of childrens to begin with.

 

[lak611]

In my parish, one of the men who is an EMHC will also be altar server if the kids do not show up.

 

[Phemie]

We also don’t have a regular complement of altar servers but there are 4 adults who will take turns helping in that capacity if no kid turns up.

We’ve tried to encourage families to serve together but so far we haven’t had much luck. One father/son team did it for a while but nobody else was interested.

 

[John_Lilburne]

Where exactly does anything describe altar serves as MANDATORY for a Mass?

Indicating where they may play a role is not the same thing.

As I quoted from the GIRM: “139. … An acolyte or other lay minister arranges the corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the Missal upon the altar.” This is part of the description of Mass without a Deacon. Other examples I gave in the first post. I regard this a mandatory, for this Mass.

Other Masses are descibed in the GIRM:
Mass with a Deacon, there it has, about the deacon: “171. … f. As needed, fulfills the duties of other ministers himself if none of them is present.”
Concelebrated Mass: “208. … In the absence also of other ministers, their proper parts may be entrusted to other suitable members of the faithful; otherwise, they are carried out by some of the concelebrants.”
Mass With Only One Minister. This used to be called “Mass Without a Congregation” in the 1975 GIRM. As Deacon Ed wrote, a priest can celebrate Mass with no one else present, no congregation and no minister. But this is clearly exceptional: “254. Mass should not be celebrated without a minister or at least one of the faithful, except for a just and reasonable cause.”

 

[Eilish_Maura]

As I quoted from the GIRM: “139. … An acolyte or other lay minister arranges the corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the Missal upon the altar.” This is part of the description of Mass without a Deacon. Other examples I gave in the first post. I regard this a mandatory, for this Mass.

Other Masses are descibed in the GIRM:
Mass with a Deacon, there it has, about the deacon: “171. … f. As needed, fulfills the duties of other ministers himself if none of them is present.”
Concelebrated Mass: “208. … In the absence also of other ministers, their proper parts may be entrusted to other suitable members of the faithful; otherwise, they are carried out by some of the concelebrants.”
Mass With Only One Minister. This used to be called “Mass Without a Congregation” in the 1975 GIRM. As Deacon Ed wrote, a priest can celebrate Mass with no one else present, no congregation and no minister. But this is clearly exceptional: “254. Mass should not be celebrated without a minister or at least one of the faithful, except for a just and reasonable cause.”

I don’t see the word mandatory in any of those quotes – apparently neither does Deacon Ed per his post on the topic.

 

[jpjd]

As I quoted from the GIRM: “139. … An acolyte or other lay minister arranges the corporal, the purificator, the chalice, the pall, and the Missal upon the altar.” This is part of the description of Mass without a Deacon. Other examples I gave in the first post. I regard this a mandatory, for this Mass.

The bold part is the problem here. You are imposing an interpretation that is incorrect.

As Deacon Ed said, priests can say a Mass by themselves. If having a server was mandatory, then a priest could not say Mass unless a server was present; and clearly that is not the case.

 

[John_Lilburne]

The word “mandatory” is nowhere in the GIRM, or Redemptionis Sacramentum. Probably not in any of the liturgical books.

But there are clear statements about the role of an altar server. From the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) approved for the USA, which can be accessed from romanrite.com/girm.html :
“115. By “Mass with a congregation”is meant a Mass celebrated with the participation of the faithful. It is moreover appropriate, whenever possible and especially on Sundays and holy days of obligation, that the celebration of this Mass take place with singing and with a suitable number of ministers. It may, however, also be celebrated without singing and with only one minister.”

The priest can do all the readings, from the GIRM “59. … Further, if another suitable lector is also not present, then the priest celebrant should also proclaim the other readings.”

But the idea that he should hand the bread to himself, present the cruets to himself, is weird.

I accept there can be circumstances where it is impossible for people to be altar servers. For example, everyone in the congregation is in wheelchairs, unable to go up the steps to the sanctuary, unable to put the corporal on the altar.

But this is not the case if there is an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. If someone is capable of distributing the Blood of Christ, they are capable of (for example) putting a corporal on the altar.

 

[Eilish_Maura]

What authority do you have to say any of this indicates altar servers are mandatory? What backup resources do you rely on?

The word “mandatory” is nowhere in the GIRM, or Redemptionis Sacramentum. Probably not in any of the liturgical books.

But there are clear statements about the role of an altar server. From the 2002 General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) approved for the USA, which can be accessed from romanrite.com/girm.html :
“115. By “Mass with a congregation”is meant a Mass celebrated with the participation of the faithful. It is moreover appropriate, whenever possible and especially on Sundays and holy days of obligation, that the celebration of this Mass take place with singing and with a suitable number of ministers. It may, however, also be celebrated without singing and with only one minister.”

The priest can do all the readings, from the GIRM “59. … Further, if another suitable lector is also not present, then the priest celebrant should also proclaim the other readings.”

But the idea that he should hand the bread to himself, present the cruets to himself, is weird.

I accept there can be circumstances where it is impossible for people to be altar servers. For example, everyone in the congregation is in wheelchairs, unable to go up the steps to the sanctuary, unable to put the corporal on the altar.

But this is not the case if there is an Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion. If someone is capable of distributing the Blood of Christ, they are capable of (for example) putting a corporal on the altar.

 

[Bbigam]

I’ve noticed things like this at some other parishes. At mine, we’ll often have 7-10 (occasionally 15) altar servers (children), and at most 1-2 EMHCs. But then we aren’t a huge parish (300 families), Father was originally trained before Vatican II, and there are tons of kids in the parish. The Cup is also very rarely offered, and we have 2 deacons.

Our servers are also kept busy holding communion patens, ringing the Sanctus bells, etc. I haven’t seen any other parishes around here (other than the FSSP community) use communion patens and very few use the bells.

At daily mass there are never EMHCs - Father serves Communion alone. There’s still usually an altar server - sometimes an adult will do it then.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

At my parish, the altar servers are children (boys from 4-12 grade) and the EMHCs are adults. I have only very rarely seen a Mass with no altar servers at all. Only once at a Sunday Mass and this was during the summer.

If a boy is not scheduled he may be at Mass but won’t realize until too late that the scheduled altar servers did not come. An EMHC who is at Mass but not scheduled can easily leave his pew when he realizes that fewer than the scheduled number have come up.

Although my son is a server, I do not require him to check in the sacristy before every Mass he attends to be sure enough servers have arrived. In the same way, my husband doesn’t automatically jump up if the scheduled numbers of EMHCs don’t come up.

At daily Mass in the few instances where no boys were there to serve, an adult man has come up to serve. Since he served without vesting, he was able to just walk up as soon as the priest came out and we saw that there was no altar boy.

 

[puzzleannie]

in our parish we have adult servers, as well as children and youth, all our male because that is our pastor’s preference, since he sees this service as having value in encouraging vocations among youth who serve.

We also have EMHC’s namely because both the priest and deacon are getting up in years and because the size of our congregation is growing quickly, They include both men and women. Most of what you see in your own parish is a function of the priest’s preference, and he has good reasons, why not just ask? If it is getting harder and harder for parents to get kids to Mass and RE because of sports etc. how much harder is it to get boys to altar server practice. The most likely reason your parish does not have children serving is that their parents won’t bring them.

 

[Seatuck]

I realize this is an old thread. In every parish I have been to the Sacristan does the items listed in the OP. The altar servers rarely did. Every once in a while we had older ones who could do some of it but it was at the direction of the Sacristan.

 

[joshua1]

Altar servers do not have to be present. THink about it this way, the altar server only assists the priest in gathering and placing the vessels. The priest is the sole person who consecrates the bread and wine. To suggest that the altar server must be present is to imply that he has something to do with the consecration and has some sort of faculties, which HE DOES NOT, emphasis mine. The priest can say mass completely alone. He would simply ommit the responses that belong to the congregation. THe ony person who can validly confect the eucharist is a validly ordained priest. It never said his faculties depended on the presence of another person.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

We regularly don’t have altar servers. One of the adult EMHC’s helps during the consecration. They have problems getting kids in our parish to help out. We don’t have a huge population of childrens to begin with.

Altar servers do not have to be children. Adults can serve. This is something that I hardly see in the Latin Church, if no children serve then there are no altar servers. In the Byzantine Churches we have a tradition of adults serving.

 

[Phemie]

I realize this is an old thread. In every parish I have been to the Sacristan does the items listed in the OP. The altar servers rarely did. Every once in a while we had older ones who could do some of it but it was at the direction of the Sacristan.

Our sacristan wouldn’t be caught anywhere near the altar during Mass. We still have a few women and one man who will serve at the altar if there are no kids. If they are not around the priest does everything himself.

 

[Mrs_Sally]

Altar servers do not have to be children. Adults can serve. This is something that I hardly see in the Latin Church, if no children serve then there are no altar servers. In the Byzantine Churches we have a tradition of adults serving.

Correct. At my parish the regularly scheduled altar servers are boys, but if there are none at a Mass for some reason, an adult man will serve. We do not schedule adults though. Sometimes (during the summer of school breaks) some of the college boys will come back to serve.