Latin Mass with servers wearing Alb?

[TraditionalCatholicT]

Is there a specific requirement or rubrics on the vestments of an altar server?

In most Traditional Parishes that offer the Latin Mass, I’ve seen the standard for servers is a cassock with a surplice (excluding the unique blue vestments of the ICKSP’s servers).

I’ve also read on several places online stating on how in the Traditional Rite the Cassock and Surplice is the usual and approved vestment, and how the alb for servers is a modern thought.

However, I was looking at some old photos before Vatican II and found a Christmas Mass with the servers wearing an alb? Could someone please help me on this? Thanks.

 

[TomH1]

I am not sure if there are any rubrics concerning what altar servers should wear. I find the rubrics are very much directed to what the priest and other scared ministers do.

I doubt wearing an alb is wrong. I think the cassock and surplice or often the cotta (a shorter version of a surplice) is what altar servers wore. When I became an altar server we used to wear the cassock and cotta and after about a year they were changed to albs.

I have heard the argument that cassock and surplice is more akin to clerical choir dress and should not be worn by laymen and that the alb is proper to all ministers sacred and lay.

I suspect you will find arguments in favour of and against both points of view.

 

[HomeschoolDad]

The last time I served the OF Mass (about 4 years ago), I wore an alb, because that’s what they did at that parish. I had to pinch-hit at the last minute when none of the youth servers were available, and thankfully, they had an alb big enough to fit me. I have to think that the congregation thought I was some sort of visiting deacon gone wrong They offered me the option of wearing my everyday clothes, or wearing an alb, and I told them, no, if I’m going to serve Mass, I want the alb.

I have my own cassock and surplice which I “inherited” from an ex-seminarian who was, like me, a man of a certain size. I used to serve the TLM regularly but haven’t done so in over 15 years. I have it stored away and have been meaning to show it to my son, to show him what Dad used to wear. At one point, when he became aware of my having discerned the priesthood in college (never actually made the plunge, and besides, my pastor told me I did not have a vocation), he was going around saying “you used to be a priest!”. Even now he will occasionally (and cheekily!) remind me “you’re not in church, stop preaching!”. (He is a man who tends to speak his mind, not much in the way of a filter.)