The Altar Server

Two of our Acolytes next to Father Mathew and our two Deacons

Altar Boy
If you are like me, you served as an altar boy when you were young. I actually served all the way through my high school years. I remember enjoying to put on the cassock and the surplice (these are the black and white garments that look like the priest's); it made me feel "priestly." In fact, while I never formally discerned for the priesthood, serving as an altar boy gave me pause to think about the priesthood as a vocation (of course I didn't know at the time that was what I was doing).  I remember thinking that serving on the altar was serious stuff.

Fathers & Sons
I have very strong opinions about the need to get more young men and boys active as altar servers. I believe this is the training ground for future priests. The purpose of this post is not to criticize the relatively recent move to permit girls as altar servers. Instead, I am simply saying that it is an opportunity to give young men a glimpse into the possibility of the priesthood as a vocation. Countless priests have said their vocations began on the altar, serving as altar boys. I believe fathers have a responsibility of encouraging their boys to serve in this capacity. Two things we can focus on : 1) they will be serving God and their community and 2) they will belong to a special team. Boys like belonging to teams.

Altar Server Training
Perhaps one of the things that needs to happen in altar server programs is a careful focus on the formation of the altar servers. They need to know what and why they are doing what they are doing. Can you imagine how truly awestruck they will be when they really comprehend that they are on the altar when the bread and wine transform into the Body and Blood of Christ?

The following video from Kolbe1019 is a must see for altar servers and I dare say for anyone who serves on or near the altar.

Saint Talk: St. Frances Cabrini

Today we celebrate the Feast of St. Frances Cabrini, the first United States citizen to be canonized and patron of immigrants.

Cabrini was born on July l5, 1850 in Sant’Angelo Lodigiano in the province of Lombardy, which is located in northern Italy.  St. Frances Cabrini was the tenth of eleven children (some sources say she twelve siblings). All but four of the children died before adolescence. Although Frances survived a premature birth, she was frail.

St. Frances Cabrini's parents, Agostino, who was farmer, and Stella who was a housewife, were devout Catholics.  They lived as example of the faith for their children. Agosto even "read to the family from the Annals of the Propagation of the Faith, telling stories of the great missionaries."  These stories of missionaries and her frail health influenced her entire life.

St. Frances Cabrini was rejected by several religious order because of her frail health. Frances, determined to do God's work, in 1863 she registered as a student at Normal School in Arluno in order to become a teacher. While she studied at the school, she lived with nuns. This served further fueled her desire to enter into the religious life. Eventually, through her work as a teacher, she would form her own order known at the Missionary Sisters of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. Some time after 1877, Pope Leo XIII would send St. Frances as a missionary to the United States.

Discernment Prayer by St. Frances Xavier Cabrini:

My Jesus,

I have not always recognized

your loving plans for me.

Every day,

with the help of your light,

I learn more of your loving care.

Continue to increase 

my awareness of the gentleness of

your loving plans.

I want to follow the purpose

for which I was created.

See, I am in your hands.

I need you to help me choose

the best way to serve you.

Walk with me, Jesus.

Stay by my side and guide me!

The Hunger Games:Advice for Catholic parents

I meant to write this post last week when the film based on The Hunger Games was released. Perhaps this discussion will help for those who didn't want to fight the crowds or are dealing with children who now want to read the books or see the movie.

My personal position (and of course that's all it is) is that parents have to make those types of decisions based on what they think their children are mature enough to handle. I addressed a similar issue with the last Harry Potter movie. Like I said in that post, the Catholic Church (outside of a movie review service) does not normally make definitive statements about books, movies or other art.

Forget about the content of the book(s) for a moment. A well formed and informed set of parents should be able to make rational decisions about what content they deem appropriate for THEIR children. If they choose to permit their children to watch the film or read the books, no one should call them out as bad parents. Similarly, parents who decide to not allow either should not be condemned as narrow minded. It's their right and responsibility to "be up in their kids' business." (I am envisioning one of my colleagues saying this).

Moreover, parents are responsible for being the primary teachers to their children. Blessed Pope John Paul II expressed this in Familiaris Consortio:

The task of giving education is rooted in the primary vocation of married couples to participate in God's creative activity: by begetting in love and for love a new person who has within himself or herself the vocation to growth and development, parents by that very fact take on the task of helping that person effectively to live a fully human life. As the Second Vatican Council recalled, "since parents have conferred life on their children, they have a most solemn obligation to educate their offspring. Hence, parents must be acknowledged as the first and foremost educators of their children. Their role as educators is so decisive that scarcely anything can compensate for their failure in it. For it devolves on parents to create a family atmosphere so animated with love and reverence for God and others that a well-rounded personal and social development will be fostered among the children. Hence, the family is the first school of those social virtues which every society needs."(FC, 36)

Here are some well balanced reviews of the movie:

National Review, Father Robert Barron

Catholic News Service, Movie Review