Pastor’s Corner — January 12th, 2025
Launching the St. Therese Sacristan Guild: A New Ministry for Girls
At the start of this year, we are excited to announce a new program for girls of the parish: the St. Therese Sacristan Guild. Named after St. Therese of Lisieux, who served as a sacristan in her Carmelite monastery, girls will now have the opportunity to assist our Sacristans to prepare for Sunday Masses. Through prayerful and loving preparation of things like linens, vessels, and liturgical books, sacristans play a key role in fostering a peaceful and sacred environment where we prayerfully encounter the love of God during Holy Mass.
In this new program adult women will model for and train girls to prepare for Mass. Importantly, after this program launches February 1st, we encourage girls to participate in the St. Therese Sacristan Guild and boys in Serviam, our altar server program, where we train boys to serve at the altar.
The decision to have a program designed for girls and one designed for boys is a pastoral decision. I believe there are good reasons particular to our specific context at St Patrick’s, our time and place, which make it pastorally wise to provide children with formation and service opportunities specific to their sex. In our culture today, there is a great danger to the healthy formation of our children in which we see the constant blurring of the distinction between men and women, the insistence that equality must be “sameness,” and the complementarity of men and women.
These complementary ministries help us promote the strong, historical, and intrinsic connection between male altar servers and discernment of the priesthood. Yes, in the past few years, St. Pat’s has been blessed to have several men enter seminary. But it is decades since the last priestly ordination from our parish. Giving young boys a role viewed by them as “something men do” provides a healthy challenge for them. We believe delineating boy and girl programs and emphasizing the traditional link of male altar service and the priesthood may well have the blessed effect of not only helping boys consider a vocation to the priesthood, but also helping girls consider a life of consecrated service to the Lord as religious women.
Essentially, both of these programs, necessary to beautiful liturgy, allow our young boys and girls to be trained and formed in living out masculinity and femininity through service. We believe these programs will offer opportunities for human and spiritual growth as well as future vocational discernment.
We are excited for this opportunity for our young girls to assist in preparing the Mass. If you’d like your daughter to be part of the St. Therese Sacristan Guild, please fill out the interest form here. Contact our Liturgy Coordinator, Carlene Demers (cdemers@stpatchurch.org) with questions.
Some Q and A:
• What is a Sacristan? A sacristan helps prepare everything needed for Mass and other church liturgies. This includes preparing the altar, arranging the sacred vessels and books, and assuring everything is in place before the Mass begins. Sacristan assistants take on some key tasks under the direction and guidance of adult mentors.
• Why are sacristans important? In the Gospels, right before Jesus celebrates his Last Supper, the first Mass, he sent a few Apostles ahead to prepare the place. They were the first sacristans! Sacristans too are sent ahead to prepare the place for the Lord to come to his people in Holy Mass. By preparing in advance, they create a peaceful, sacred environment where people enter into prayer and worship. The sacristan role, often unnoticed and behind the scenes, is crucial to the life of the Church.
• Girls of what age can serve in the St Therese Guild? Similar to altar server age requirements, girls in 4-12th grade can serve as sacristan assistants in the Guild.
• Will girls who are already altar servers continue in that role? Beginning February 1st, we have decided to encourage parents to have their daughters serve as sacristan assistants and their sons as altar servers. This may be a sacrifice for some individuals. Consider making that sacrifice for the benefit of the goals of these programs. My vision is to create a culture where boys are inspired to serve at the altar, and girls are inspired to serve as sacristan assistants, and formation happens for all. If you’d like to talk about this, feel free to reach out to me or Fr. Joshua.
• Will this affect the Parish School? At this time, this will not have an effect on the current altar server program at St. Patrick School.
• How can my daughter join? On February 1st, there is a Retreat/Training Day for the St. Therese Guild. Please fill out the interest form, or email Carlene (cdemers@stpatchurch.org)
Faith and Science Resources (As Mentioned in My Homily)
In my homily last week, I spoke about some intellectual reasons why some people don’t believe in God or Jesus. In that vein I mentioned the faith and science workshop that I conducted last year that explored the relationship between faith and science. While many good-hearted and intelligent people have come to believe the lie that faith and science are opposed, many Christians just don’t know how to explain that they are not. The problem of course is that we just need to be better formed.
For the mini-course last year, which I admit ended up being far deeper intellectually than some bargained for, I developed this Resources on Faith and Science page for those who want to learn more about this topic. (The Wonder Conference 2023 videos alone are worth your time, we watched these as the basis of our discussion) There are hundreds of solid books and websites on this topic. My hope is that some of these references can help you see the brilliance of the Catholic intellectual tradition and the beauty of science and how it all points to God.
Your servant in the Lord,
Fr. Mathias