The Altar BoyMany religions have ceremonies that include young people in their services. I was raised Catholic so I was expected to become an altar boy. This was when I was ten and had just discovered Little League baseball. My father took away my baseball glove until I properly learned my Latin responses to the priest. I agonized about it but it did me no good with Pop. With that incentive, I learned my Latin really fast.
Until I learned my Latin and became an official altar boy, I was an acolyte. This began when I was seven and was only used at Christmas and Easter when we donned the special cassocks used only for those occasions. We really thought we were something in those. They consisted of a white cassock and red cape with gold fringe and a big red bow around our neck.. The thrill wore off during midnight Mass at Christmas and the younger boys usually fell asleep while we were seated in the sacristy since it was well after our usual bedtime.
One of the duties of an altar boy was to ring the bells at the appropriate time during Mass. These were a configuration of four different bells attached to one stem with a round handle at the top. There was a technique to getting the proper musical sound from the bells. I remember one time I didn’t move the bells in the proper manner and all that came out was a very faint “ding-ding”. The other altar boy just had to make the most of the moment by audibly saying to me “Ice Cream Man”, because it sounded just like the sound the Shore Maid truck made when he made his rounds. So, at a very solemn moment, the humor of two young boys shattered the solemnity of the moment. We might have been altar boys, but we were still boys and “boys will be boys”.
The Catholic Church changed many of the rules in 1962 to try to modernize the Church. The first time I went to Church after the changes, a woman was in the sacristy beyond the Communion rail and she was playing a guitar and singing. They have since done away with the Communion rail altogether.They also have altar GIRLS. They took most of the Latin out of the Mass. The late Bill Riordan and I tried to make some headway into keeping the Latin Mass, but we were up against a much too powerful force.
I still go to Mass on Christmas and at Easter, but it is not the same. I learned in the seminary that along with the structured scripture of the Mass, we should learn to meditate in our own minds. It is so hard now, with all the new innovations, that I feel more like I am on the foul line at an NBA game with all the hand shaking and such. They are trying to get people to be more interactive with the other Church members. Maybe so, but I go to Church to pray, not socialize. So that is why I don’t go every Sunday. I found that I can stay home and talk to God without all the distractions. Anyway, He is everywhere, isn’t He?
7 comments:
George, there have been soo many changes in the Church, some okay and some not so okay. My mom wanted me to be an altar boy really bad but I was not sure I could learn the latin LOL I remember asking a priest at St Francis why cant they have a latin mass once in awhile and he told me that they would have to get permission from higher ups. I then asked another priest, who was much younger, about it and he said the only reason that they cannot have a latin Mass is that the priests did not know how to do it which made sense to me.
An Altar boy is not what it use to be.
I no longer attend for many of the same reasons and a few more. At age 76,raised a Catholic I have all the same thoughts as George. I don't want to shake hands and great people that I rarely see again. It is a failed attempt at trying to get everyone on the same page. Also there have been some recent changes, since 1962 that I have not kept up with but those I have heard a little about do not tempt me to return.
I was raised in a very Irish Catholic family. But, as a younger guy(late 20s), many of us heard of stories while in CCD/Sunday School. That only "certain kind of guys" became altar boys. It was a message that many of us got. I don't know if it held any credence, but I wasn't willing to test the theory. I also recieved some unique insight from my Grandma, who worked in a Rectory for nearly 40 years. She never mentioned anything like that, but did say inappropriate material was found regularly. Times certainly have changed.
Mr. CHEVALLIER would you ever consider putting together a list of reading material for those of us that would like to expand our knowledge of Salisbury and the Eastern Shore.
I try to get here every saturday just to read your post. It has been very interesting to see about things I didn’t know about growing up here in Salisbury.
George: sorry you don't get the devotion out of the ritual of Christian Mass. I too was an altar boy from 4th grade through high school and my brothers and I served at all the Catholic services from daily Mass to the Christmas and Easter observances. We did the Latin. Reaching out to my fellow parishioners to me is symbolic of Christ reaching out to his followers. I do go to Mass every Sunday at least; doesn't God deserve that small sacrifice?
RIP George I hope you didn't get buggered by those priests
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