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Cardinal Newman Catechist
Consultants — 5th March, 2016
HANDOUTS n. 131
“Clear, brief and easily assimilated by all”
Marian Girls
A new “Children of Mary” a Marian “Girl Guides”
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as a PDF
WE need an appropriate parish
“ministry” for girls to serve the congregation in the pews, during Mass and
outside of Mass.
Its
members would complement the ministry for boys who serve
the priest on the sanctuary.
MARIAN GIRLS
Sunday
Mass in most parishes would be enhanced by Marian Girls or a “Young
Marian Girls’ Group”. The present groups of altar girls are ready at hand
to supply members for a new ministry.
At
Sunday Mass, such a group offers more extensive and varied roles than
does the service of Altar Boys on the sanctuary.
And
it’s for girls only, no boys!
This
idea has already proved the preferred choice of some groups of altar
girls — even at a time when many Catholics are losing the ability to
spiritualize albeit ordinary acts of service to others.
Mothers
and female teachers are by no means radical feminists. They have been
enthusiastic for Altar Girls simply because there was nothing else
available. If offered an alternative, most mothers and teachers will
choose it. They want their daughters or pupils to feel ‘special’ and
‘valued’ in the Church community. They are unlikely to be particular
about how it is done.
SPIRITUALITY
The
first aim of such a parish group of Marian Girls would be to glorify God
by the sanctification of its members and service to the congregation.
They
might pray that some of the altar boys might hear and heed a vocation to
the priesthood, since promoting vocations is enjoined on all (canon
233§1).
Its
spirituality and prayers could be taken from the Angelus and Our
Lady’s Magnificat:
* Ecce! Behold, the handmaid
of the Lord.
* Fiat Be it done to
me according to thy word.
• Magnificat! My
soul glorifies the Lord.
ACTIVITY 1 — vergers
A
verger is more than an usher who oversees the interior of a church.
Marian girls will probably like to sit in the front seats as a group,
perhaps in a white uniform with blue accessories. They
and their mothers are good judges.
Their
reverence and deportment would edify the congregation
and guide postures for the lapsed or non-Catholics. They
could have their own Marian Prayers and be available to
lead the Rosary or Liturgy of the Hours
before or after Mass.
They
could distribute the Sunday Mass bulletins at the door, find
people seats in a crowded church, and help young mothers cope
with small children. Social functions
also have their place.
ACTIVITY 2 — choristers
Marian
Girls could form a Choir tutored by an organist. “Lead
choirs” help congregations with Latin chants found in some editions of
the Sunday Missal. Special motets suit Offertory and Communion. Longer
English hymns, e.g. sequences, Gloria and Creed, suit a choir
giving support to a congregation to sing the odd verses in melody, with
the choir alone singing alternate verses in harmony. Choirs like a
challenge, and no one is excluded.
They
can encourage a diffident congregation with Responses
made confidently, loudly and clearly.
Announcing hymns carefully would give people time to find the right place:
“The entrance hymn is n. 7, Firmly I believe and truly, n. 7” — or
Offertory Hymn, Communion Hymn, “Hymn of Praise after Communion” and the
Recessional.
They
can be available for the Readings or to make the Petitions
for the Prayer of the Faithful.
They
could organize the Offertory procession — or even
accompany it with flowers to put near the altar.
ACTIVITY 3—
sacristans
As
sacristans they would complement the altar boys to set up altar
and sanctuary.
Decorating the sanctuary is doing something beautiful for
God. Flowers bring people closer to God through the
beauty in His creation. They enhance worship and encourage reverence for
the sacred place. They help everyone rediscover the religious aspects of
beauty and its historic place in Catholic worship.. Girls love flower
arranging and older ladies would be a good guide for them in the work
sacristy and the placement of vases on the sanctuary.
Laundering altar linen, is a great honour, not a chore, and
a privilege once enjoyed by the nuns. There are special prayers for some
items because of its intimate use with the Blessed Sacrament.
Baking altar breads, under strict supervision of the ingredients, is a
suitable ministry for girls, even of primary school age. Rightly they
thrill with deep devotion to know that it is their bread that Our Lord will change into His Body.
PARISH PRIESTS
The
parish priest has pastoral authority to start a Marian Girls, and develop
it as he sees fit, with office bearers, meetings, prayer plans. .
The
Prayer Book and Manual of The Children of Mary remains a
resource for setting high standards and planning recruitment of further
members from the girls of a parish and its schools.
However,
great pastoral charity and prudence is needed. It has been done already.
It can be done again — for the glory of God and sanctification of souls.
And the idea might spread to other parishes.
Future of the Priesthood and Altar
Boys
VITAL FOR VOCATIONS
PRIESTS and faithful now realize that we have to make a
stark choice — to help boys discover God’s call to the priesthood OR
to continue with altar girls. It is a matter of one or the other.
What
is proposed here is directed primarily to parish priests who have
inherited, or themselves mistakenly initiated altar girls. What is needed
is “a way forward”, without any fuss or an angry word or even a tear
shed. Otherwise, as we have seen for the last 40 years, boys
will quit.
It
seems that unisex, now dubbed “gender equality”, is linked to deprivation
in psychosexual maturation. Maybe it is due to “a lack” in childhood
relationships with their fathers. Boys and girls need continuing formation
and example of both father and mother in the complementary sexual roles.
The
feminist agenda insists on unisex. It is an ideology
enforced by dictatorial decree: Hoc volo, sic iubeo, dixi
— “This I wish, thus I command, I have spoken.” They don’t know or can’t
recognize the obvious, that boys and girls are different. It is a dead
end. Experience shows that complementarity, not interchangeability,
always works.
“They
do err in their hearts”
Psalm 95[94] and “There
is a lying spirit in the mouths of all their prophets” 1 Kings 22:22.
STRONG CORRELATION
There
is strong link between future priests and youthful service of boys on the
sanctuary. In altar serving, boys can gain that intimacy with Christ to
hear and heed His call to be spiritual fathers to the faithful
and spiritually married to the Church, and to seek entry into
the seminary.
Of
course, the usual vocation for boys is fatherhood of families. Less usual
is the fatherhood of single men in a spiritual fatherhood in the lay
apostolate.
Most
girls will become home-making mothers or spiritual mothers as nuns.
Others embrace the virginal life of spiritual motherhood in the lay
apostolate.
“BUT ALTAR GIRLS ARE PERMITTED”
They
began from disobedience in the 1970s, like several other less desirable
practices, e.g. Communion in the Hand and received standing.
St
John Paul II forbade altar girls in Inaestimabile Donum (on
correcting abuses) 1980, n. 18; cf. Blessed Paul VI in the Third
Instruction on the Liturgy 1970 n. 7.
Further,
he had assured Blessed Mother Teresa of Calcutta that there would never
be altar girls. I have a friend (now RIP), who phoned her to confirm
this.
In
1994, when he was very ill, he was persuaded to implement a particular
exegesis of Canon Law.
Yet
on Holy Thursday, 2004, he spoke of “Altar servers... a garden of
priestly vocations... a pre-seminary.” Since women can’t be priests, by
servers he certainly meant the male sex.
Yet
some still consider altar girls as normative!
The 1994 CONCESSION VOIDED by it
results
With the advent of altar girls, the
boys dropped out, so the original concession is no longer valid:
... the Holy See wishes to recall
that it will always be very appropriate to follow the noble
tradition of having boys serve at the altar. As is well known, this has
also led to a reassuring development of priestly vocations.
Original
concession for altar girls, 15-3-1994
BOYS & YOUTH PREFERRED
It is altogether laudable to
maintain the noble custom by which boys or youths, customarily termed servers,
provide service of the altar after the manner of acolytes, and receive
catechesis regarding their function in accordance with their power of
comprehension. Nor should it be forgotten that a great number of
sacred ministers over the course of the centuries have come from among
boys such as these. Associations for them... should be
established or promoted... Girls or women may also be admitted to this
service of the altar, at the discretion of the diocesan Bishop and in
observance of the established norms. Sacrament of Redemption, (2004) n. 47
The
“associations” are for boys. The last sentence seems to hint that altar
girls were a mistake. Already, in 2001, Cardinal Medina (Congregation of
Divine Worship) said that no priest can be compelled to have altar girls
even in dioceses where they are allowed.
WHERE WILL OUR PRIESTS COME FROM?
Australia now depends on
Asian/African missionary priests. Check! Do their countries have altar
girls?
BOYS & GIRLS are not the same
Their
vital roles in life are different, but linked by their complementary
sexuality, whereby all are enriched. Equality and justice demand that
dissimilar things be treated dissimilarly:
They [teachers] should, together
with the parents, make full allowance for the difference of sex
and for the particular role which providence has appointed to each sex
in the family and in society. VCII on Christian Education
GE n. 8(e)
... inalienable right to education
... suitable to the particular destiny of the individuals, adapted
to their ability, sex and natural cultural traditions... (ibid n. I)
ACCEPTING ONE’S SEXUAL IDENTITY
Everyone, man and woman, should
acknowledge and accept his sexual identity. Physical, moral, and
spiritual difference and complementarity are oriented toward the
goods of marriage and the flourishing of family life. The harmony of the
couple and of society depends in part on the way in which the complementarity,
needs, and mutual support between the sexes are lived out. Italics in original '.Catechism
of the Catholic Church n. 2333
WOMEN MINISTERING to Christ &
Apostles
He [Jesus] went ... preaching and
bringing the good news of the kingdom of God. And the twelve were with him
and also some women ... who provided for them out of their means.
Luke 8:1-3
Father
James Tierney
© The
Rev. B.J.H. Tierney. Handouts are free and may be
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