Serving and Reading and Hosts, Oh My!

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I have a question pertaining to what can and can’t be done at Mass in terms of duties. I am the “Master of Ceremonies” for my parish’s 4:00 PM Saturday Vigil mass. Often times, this means covering for people who don’t show up for other duties. Sometimes, I am simply scheduled to do more than one thing. I know that it can certainly look foolish and disorganized if someone does too much when people are there to share responsibilities. However, is it acceptable to be, say, a server and lector, server and Eucharistic minister, etc. . . at the same Mass? One of my books, with an Imprimatur, says that it may be preferable to have the senior server (aka Master of Ceremonies) take on two roles if necessary. I don’t mean to “toot my own horn,” but I intend to become a priest as soon as possible. One of my priest friends says that it is “good practice.” I agree, but the nun at my parish (who is not the most spot-on-with-Rome person) says that what I am doing is wrong and liturgically unacceptable. What is the conclusive word on this?
 
Friend_Of_Rome said:
I have a question pertaining to what can and can’t be done at Mass in terms of duties. I am the “Master of Ceremonies” for my parish’s 4:00 PM Saturday Vigil mass. Often times, this means covering for people who don’t show up for other duties. Sometimes, I am simply scheduled to do more than one thing. I know that it can certainly look foolish and disorganized if someone does too much when people are there to share responsibilities. However, is it acceptable to be, say, a server and lector, server and Eucharistic minister, etc. . . at the same Mass? One of my books, with an Imprimatur, says that it may be preferable to have the senior server (aka Master of Ceremonies) take on two roles if necessary. I don’t mean to “toot my own horn,” but I intend to become a priest as soon as possible. One of my priest friends says that it is “good practice.” I agree, but the nun at my parish (who is not the most spot-on-with-Rome person) says that what I am doing is wrong and liturgically unacceptable. What is the conclusive word on this?
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Most of the liturgical documents indicate that when possible the roles should be divided among those (lay)ministers present. When necessary one (lay)minister may perform more than one or a certain function can even be subdivided among two (lay) ministers.
 
That’s what I thought. Thank you very much! :extrahappy:

PS - More (name removed by moderator)ut readily welcomed!
 
At my home parish and at the parish where I work, it is forbidden to take on more than one role at any particular Mass.
 
Do they give a reason? Maybe it could be more of a pastoral preference?

Do the different Councils of Bishops, i.e. US, Canada, Britain etc. . . set different rules like this?
 
jmcrae said:
At my home parish and at the parish where I work, it is forbidden to take on more than one role at any particular Mass.
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You mean, if the altar servers don’t show up, the lector can’t assist the priest at offetory? The lector can’t light the altar candles prior to Mass? This seems a little extreme to me.
 
There was one Mass at which no people showed up to do anything, and no one in the congregation had the proper training. Thus, I had to do three things (serve, read, and distribute communion). I would think that Rome would prefer having things done in this instance than having the priest stumble along without any help whatsoever. 🤷
 
Fascinating. Sometimes we try to do the right thing, only to discover that it was wrong.

Reminds me of my days as an altar boy back in Chicagoland. Mom always signed me up for 6:15 am Mass. On Sundays, I would hang around to make sure enough showed up for the next Mass at 7:30. (We ran 1 hour-15 minute headways on Sunday, through 12:30 pm)

One Sunday during really bad weather, I served at five straight Masses, and was headed for a sixth. When the priest came in to do the 12:30 (he had already seen me at the 8:45) he literally yelled at me to “call your mother and get out of here!”

He did the 12:30 without servers, and I went home.
 
Wow. The closest I ever came to that was doing a wedding, a funeral, and Saturday vigil Mass on same day. I had meals between Masses, though lol 😃
 
I was also “default” sub for Saturday 5:15 vigil Mass, since I worked at the rectory on Saturday’s stuffing bulletins after CCD.

Sometimes, looking back, I think the only reason I didn’t wind up a priest was because of family pressure to “carry on the family name”. My Dad and my Uncle together had two boys and eight girls. My male cousin, now deceased, never had children.
 
Maybe the deaconate is for you? I’m not in any position to guide you, but maybe you should talk to someone about it if you were (are?) that ardent about the Church.
 
Uncle_Norbert said:
You mean, if the altar servers don’t show up, the lector can’t assist the priest at offetory?
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The EMHC can do certain minimal things, but not the whole role of the altar server.
The lector can’t light the altar candles prior to Mass? This seems a little extreme to me.
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If the Sacristan doesn’t show up, the lead altar server does this. If there are no altar servers and no Sacristan, the EMHC will do this. One time, the RCIA Catechist did it, because nobody else was available; he normally doesn’t take any role at Mass, though.

The reason, as I understand it, is so that when a role goes missing, the congregation notices the gap, and becomes inspired to fill it. If one person does everything and it all seems to be running smoothly, nobody will volunteer. But if there is an obvious gap, then they are a lot more likely to volunteer.

I was once reading at a Mass where nobody except me showed up, and the priest was not only from out of town but also didn’t speak any English other than the words of the Mass. Since I had never been trained on anything else, and didn’t have keys to the Sacristy anyway, the decision not to do anything else was pretty easy. We got by - he didn’t seem to think I did anything wrong.

That’s the last time I’ve ever seen the Sacristan absent, though - I think someone must have spoken to him. 👍
 
I’m 47 now, and far too pragmatic, and not spiritual enough for that, but thanks for the thought 😃

My main duties at Church now pretty much seems to be fixing things, and hauling/setting up/tearing down tables and chairs for various events.

The office staff often kids me that I will be moving around tables and chairs in Purgatory:thumbsup:
 
If there is no lector, the priest can do the first reading and recite the psalm. I would th ink this is better than having one person be server, lector and EMHC. Also a priest can commission an EMHC for one mass only in a situation where there is none and there is a need. I have seen this done. In fact, that is how I got started as an EMHC.
 
then what necessarily, does “Master of Ceremonies” denote? Would it simply mean that he is master of the ceremony and yet can’t actually partake in the actions? :confused:
 
Normally we’d only have an MC for a Mass with the Bishop, and the MC is ‘attached’ to him. Generally the oldest altar server would assign the roles for the Mass so I suppose that would be a semi-official MC role. I have always taken it to be about keeping the younger servers right and trying to make sure everything runs smoothly. Most of the time we have a Reader/EMHC not scheduled in the congregation who’ll fill in although in the past we have had a server who acted as the Reader (and didn’t serve) and one occasion where another acted as EMHC and also served.
 
A MC is more than a senior altar server. MCs are usually deacons or priests and usally only used for liturgies involving an ordinary. MCs are trained in Liturgy by their respective diocese and they usually are “commisioned” by their bishop.

I believe you are not correctly using the term MC…perhaps you mean director of liturgy. Or Lead altar server.
 
Are there no people in the pews, that the priest, or yourself, could pull from? Ask them to do the readings, or assist as an EMHC?

Sometimes, people get into these multiple roles, because they don’t know how to say “no.” Other times, its because some people don’t want to share the various jobs, and keep it all to themselves, by not asking for help.

Jim
 
I am using the term correctly. my parish priest and numerous others refer to me as the MC. The bishop in my diocese is a nice person, but not the most “liturgically-savvy” person. it’s up to the pastors who is the MC.

Whenever I do the double duty, it is only because there is no one able or willing to do that task.
 
THurifer2 said:
A MC is more than a senior altar server. MCs are usually deacons or priests and usally only used for liturgies involving an ordinary. MCs are trained in Liturgy by their respective diocese and they usually are “commisioned” by their bishop.

I believe you are not correctly using the term MC…perhaps you mean director of liturgy. Or Lead altar server.
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Just to clarify I do realise that the MC is normally a Priest or Deacon. I think from his initial post it was obviously more of a lead server role than an MC. But in practice the role is quite similar in terms of what they do during the Mass so its easy to see why the title might be used particularly for a potential seminary applicant.
 
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