Sunday, June 19, 2005

Today I went to St. Ignatius Church in Hicksville. Once again, there were altar boys in cassocks and surplices. This is starting to resember a trend. When I was an altar boy we wore silly looking white albs that were always wrinkled, and ropes tied around our waist. The albs were ours and we were responsible for bringing them home, and they were always too short since boys were constantly growing. Some years ago, someone changed them all to black cassocks and white surplices and it looked great. This was around the time I stopped going to Church but the few times I did I always thought that the altar servers (now including girls) looked better than in "my day". The black cassocks seemed to fit better and if they were wrinkled you did not see the wrinkles as much. Someone, I think a parish priest, wrote a letter in the parish bulletin saying that the altar servers were not vested properly since cassocks and surplices were from the middle ages and worn by those who would become priests. So they had to be changed - to silly looking white albs, this time a better quality, complete with hoods and no rope. This priest later dissappeared due to sudden health reasons, and went back to living with his fomer religious community. Anyway, our parish now has the white albs but I always like seeing Mass with altar servers in black (or red) cassocks and white surplices. Not only is it more traditional, but it actually seems to make more sense on a practical level. It just looks better!

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