Altar Servers as Robots

Few years ago, I was one of those boys you see in Sunday masses at your local church assisting the priest during mass. Yes, I was an altar boy, and I was (I think) good at doing it. I trained some boys in our parish to serve the right way, and also taught them the meanings and explanations of every action they do in a Liturgical ceremony.

What normal people see in mass.

I actively served in the church for about six or seven years, but I had to stop because I was about to start college. The time demanded from me was enough to take the spot of my church activities, and for the first time in around 7 years, I began to attend mass sitting in the pews in front of the altar, rather than staying right beside it. It was sitting in the pews that I begin to notice all the time the altar servers serving in the sanctuary. Even in other parishes, I tend to watch out for their mistakes

In every mass I attend, I always tend to put a percentage of my attention to the altar server assisting the priest in mass. I always look out for some mistakes, even the little ones, and say something negative inside my head like “Ano ba yan, bakit hindi niya…bla bla bla”, “ang engot naman nito, pucha”.

Yeah, I know, what I’m doing is bad, but you can’t blame someone for thinking of things like this especially if that someone knows something. I realized that altar servers, like priests, needs training. Although the diocese holds mandatory seminars annually for people who serve in the mass, there are parishes that have altar servers who are not well trained.

Serving the altar is an easy job if one would only look at the actions associated with it, but people often disregard the liturgical meanings of these actions. The effect here is a parish having altar servers functioning on pure actions, no meaning in what they do or whatsoever. Hence, the title of this entry.

What I see... sometimes.

Altar servers are human beings, not robots. It is not enough for an “Altar Server” to go up the altar, assist the priest in the Liturgy and genuflect at the end. It takes more than that.

Like what I said before in one of the meetings back then, you can’t just walk in front of a kid and ask him to serve in the altar, nor approach a parent to volunteer his son to wear a sutana and assist the priest. Again, it takes more than that. One must know the rationale of liturgical actions. It loses its meaning if an altar server doesn’t know this and I believe he fails his purpose of being there.