Ten years ago we became members of our current parish and our boys have been participating in the Altar Boy Boot Camp ever since. There have been three different pastors during our time here, and there were a couple of pandemic summers when it didn't happen, but ABBC was back this summer! It's such a great program that encourages the young men to serve at Mass and fosters a faithful fraternity.
Note: Don't worry, there is a Sacristan Boot Camp as well, for the girls in the parish, and Maggie is part of that. I don't want to debate the pros and cons of male only altar serving, but I will say that our parish is thriving and full of boys who want to serve (and girls who want to sacristan) and I think that having the groups separated by gender is key to that success. Other parishes around here that have boys and girls who can altar serve seem to have much smaller numbers and the boys tend to drop out quickly once the girls take over.
The three-day boot camp starts with Mass each morning, trains the newest boys who have received First Communion (including my Declan this year), and includes lots of food and sports and fun. The little guys look up to the big teenagers who seem so cool and the big guys are so helpful and welcoming to the newest ones. On the third day of the boot camp, the boys go on a field trip. This year they went to a beautiful local church (our old parish!) and then to an escape room.
This gives me ALL the heart eye emojis!! How handsome they look ready to serve the Church.
ReplyDeleteThank you!!
DeleteI've never heard of altar server boot camp. What a great concept. I love that there is such a large group, and that they make if fun, like a special club. How amazing to have such a big crowd show up and serve. When my kids were servers, they used to race back and get dressed to serve after the mass started if the scheduled servers didn't show up and the priest had no one. Um, I admit a few of those times we later realized that OUR kids WERE the scheduled servers and we just blanked on the assignment. Oops.
ReplyDeleteYes, there are so many servers that it's ok if you forget here :)
DeleteAh so interesting how it varies per parish! I loooved serving and can't wait until my daughters can serve. I remember my first time serving, and my grandparents all came to watch with my parents, hahaha, it was a big event for us...but I was a disaster LOL. Thankfully, I had a nice older girl to get me through it, and my mom called her mom afterward to tell her. I bonded with so many priests through my time serving. My mom once said "the whole church could hear you servers and the priest howling with laughter before mass started! What was so funny?" I wish I remembered!
ReplyDeleteAnd I love that they make room for all the servers who show up for each mass! I've never seen that at my parish except for sacraments. When I served, I'd pop to the back if I remembered to see if they had enough servers. One time, I forgot to check, and they processed in with just one server, so I made the long trek (in front of the whole congregation, gasp!) to grab a robe and help out. Crazy what we remember :)
Love your memories! Oh yes, for the servers who get there late, they just change and "sneak" onto the altar, having missed the procession. Probably nobody notices except for the embarrassed parents ;)
DeleteWhat an awesome way to engaged the kids in serving. My parish has very few altar servers- the ones they have are aging out and going off to college. My kids seem to be the only ones who serve consistently. However, my 2 sons who serve now are not very good at it. Their big sister helps them out (she serves with one of them at a time - she's in charge) No one has ever done formal training . I suggest the parish do some formal training- invite the CCD kids and Catholic school kids- but nothing was done.
ReplyDeleteI think the way our parish does it is really great, and we didn't make it up! Our pastor at the time copied the boot camp idea from another pastor he was friends with from across the country.
DeleteWhat do the sacristans do? I'm Byzantine rite so everything is a little different. One of the Byzantine traditions is that females don't go behind the icon screen so all of the alter servers are boys. If there are no teen/tween boys at the service (happens occasionally) then one of the adults will serve.
ReplyDeleteSacristans prepare the altar before the Mass starts (light candles, make sure the Bible is out, etc) and then clean up after Mass is over :)
DeleteI love that girls can be sacristans! What age do they start that and is there an older person they work with? My daughter's heart broke a little when her daddy told her she could not be a server and i would like to introduce the idea to our parish of having yonger girls prepare the altar. When i was young this job was done by one very old lady who seemed to live at the church. She was a widow and quite devoted. I never thought until recently how this matter was handled in parishes that didn't have a Mrs. Klose.
ReplyDeleteThey can start the summer after First Communion (just like when the boys can altar serve). They have a bootcamp as well, with training and fun to promote a sisterhood of sorts. There is always a Senior Sacristan and a Junior Sacristan on the schedule for masses, so there are quite a few older women who are the seniors and the young girls are juniors until they reach high school age. We have some young girls (maybe middle school- high school aged) who also read at our parish. Lots of ways to get involved :)
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