Sorry to hurt peoples feelings, but the alb is a sacerdotal vestment. It is not a garment proper to the lay state. It is for the ordained. This is the tradition of the Church. If you don't like it, then tough rocks.Photo taken today at Pontifical Mass over the tomb of St. Agnes on her feast in Rome.
We need to continue reinstating the whole range of possibilities for sound liturgy with the rights of the laity protected within the unity of Summorum Pontificum.
IT'S A WOMAN!
ReplyDeleteChiesa Vetero-Cattholica?
ReplyDeleteWhat are they doing there?
ReplyDeleteI beg to differ. The alb is the vestment proper to all baptised persons. It is the stole that makes the difference.
ReplyDeleteThe alb is a continuation of our white garment at baptism. The pall on the casket - always white - is a further continuance of the link to the white garment of baptism. A sign of purity of soul. So, the alb is not exclusively a clerical robe.
Are there different types of albs? I've never seen altar servers wear anything other than something that looks similar to an alb so I'm not sure whether it's exactly the same item as a priest wears or not.
ReplyDeletealthough i think you are right about the alb, nevertheless i resent this kind of attitude towards women. for 2000 years our community committed grave sins against them, so it would be proper to get them a little more involved, in order to make them feel somewhat equal. after all, from the rich and influential like Saint Helena to the poor and humble like mother Theresa they have given us more than enough proof about they being MUCH BETTER material for a Christian than us men. i as a Catholic male feel ashamed about how we preach respect towards women without practicing it.
ReplyDeleteWTH?! Woman serving at the althar?! Are they nuts?
ReplyDeleteWell, these two are part of the Church YOU defend. This is merely exhibit number 1,487,348 that contradicts any notion that Pope B16 has any desire to combat the heresies in the Church. This is his diocese--yet he cannot keep his own house clean. Anyway, don't you know that this photo represents the hermeneutic of continuity? I hope the SSPX finally get a clue and walk away from the discussions they are having with Rome. You and your friends at the FSSP/ICK can continue to play High Church and denounce practices like the one captured in this photo, but the reality is that while you ignore the obvious, these theological termites are continuing their evil work of destroying the Church from within.
ReplyDeleteUm, the alb is symbolic of baptism, but not an actual baptismal gown.
ReplyDeleteThis is terrible, and we wonder why we have a vocation crisis. Keep the women out of the Sanctuary.
ReplyDeleteWhy does respect for women translate as them doing everything that men do - are - act? Can't we take pride in our differences and accomplishments?
ReplyDeleteMother Theresa wore a simple, yet beautiful habit as symbol of her devotion to the service of Christ.. we didn't see her wearing albs and cassocks -- clothing designed originally for the celebration of Mass.
And traditionally.. the color of the funeral pal was BLACK... symbolic of the loss and grief we all feel for the loss of a loved one.. and the judgment all of us will face before God.
Once we get over this idea of everyone DOING something at Mass.. and get back to being on our knees worshiping God present in the Blessed Sacrament.. we will be much better off.
Play dress up and wear whatever you want at home. Leave the Mass for worship of God.. not of each other.
*steps off soapbox*
The alb is a vestment having its origin in the Third Book of Moses commonly called Leviticus.
ReplyDelete"The alb is the vestment proper to all baptised persons. It is the stole that makes the difference."
ReplyDeleteI have heard this elsewhere as well. What I can't stand are female altar servers wearing a cassock and surplice! So if we have to have them for the time being, let them wear an alb!
It not the laity part. It that it is being worn by females in a liturgy role. That is the part I have with. By doing this promotes females that are in the rites of men in the order of priesthood. That's the whole problems, everybody want to play priest, which lack persona Christi.
ReplyDeleteIt's again a very modernist tendency in advocating the "fairness" between men and women. In his logic, should I further suggest that in the light of Equaity of sexes, men should know wear women lingerie and highheels? it's hilarous!
ReplyDeleteThey look like 2 dime-a-dozen Lutheran or Anglican Protestant ministers.
ReplyDeleteI have to agree with Scott but not that the SSPX should just walk away from discussions with Rome. I have always felt that Our Holy Father, as the bishop of Rome, NEEDS to clamp down on the liturgies and church architecture within his own diocese with some local legislation. Why not decree, for example, that every Church in Rome which has a high altar has to use it and remove the table altar, or that Communion is only to be given on the tongue, and at an altar rail when it is in existence?
ReplyDeleteI know that the style of Benedict is to subtly and decisively do things within the Papal liturgies and try to set some kind of inspirational example to be followed. The trickle-down effect has been very scarce though, even in Rome. And furthermore, when those not on board with Pope Benedict realize that he is not going to do any more than adjust his own papal liturgies, even if he specifically says that they are a model to be copied, those who take exception choose NOT to copy them because they know they can get away with it.
The next logical step, in my mind, would be for he as the bishop of Rome to make these needed adjustments. But, in the next breath, I have to say that things may just have gotten so bad now that he feels he is powerless to do anything of that nature.
I agree with a lot of the commentors here about women STAYING OUT of the sanctuary---and I'm a woman!
ReplyDeleteThis picture is very, very wrong!
Barb in NY
They're both women.
ReplyDeleteWhat a disgrace to defile the commemoration of a great saint like St. Agnes with this nonsense.
Another fruit of Vatican II. UGH!!
At least they're not wearing cassocks and surplices-- those are something female altar servers should NEVER wear. And I guess their wearing albs is fine, as long as it's not the same kind of albs that priests and deacons wear.
ReplyDeleteThe Catholic Church never sinned against women: thanks to her, during 2000 years, the West was the only place where women have been seen as persons with rights - as subjects of law - and not mere things. Really, as John uses to say: to study History is to be Catholic.
ReplyDelete@Mauro Cappelari: never is a strong word: for example throughout centuries we willingly sanctified the forced marriage of underage girls to middle aged men (in my country this was still possible before WWII and it were the Communists (!) who made an end to it).
ReplyDeletesadly it took us many decades to catch up with the secular world and accept women being persons equal in rights to men. as far as I'm concerned, no great deed some thousand years ago can make this recent sin less significant.
Does anyone else think there's something wrong with taking pictures of people *at Church* with the intent of posting them online to be maligned?
ReplyDeleteAnonymous said...
ReplyDeleteDoes anyone else think there's something wrong with taking pictures of people *at Church* with the intent of posting them online to be maligned?
NO, NOT WHEN WHAT THEY ARE DOING IS WRONG!
ALL THE ABUSES AND LITURGICAL GARBAGE OF VATICAN ii needs to be exposed as wrong. And this is but 1 example.
Dear anon 3:35 PM: never is a strong word, indeed; but no less true, also. I rest my case and won’t be an eventual highly irregular canonical practice committed sixty years ago in a remote corner of Eastern Europe that will jeopardize it.
ReplyDeleteObviously, I won’t discuss with you, in a mere comment box of a blog, if the Holy Catholic Church (the Bride of Christ) can sin and be sinful, much less if she must encompass her action with the madness of the secular world (an enemy of the soul, never forget!).
I would make the distinction that no server's outfit (whether alb or cassock and surplice) is really "proper" to the laity. It has been the practice for boys and men, when standing in the place of properly ordained clerics to assume certain clerical garb in order to perform the duties deputized to them-whether than would be an alb or cassock and surplice. Women should wear neither as they cannot properly stand in for clerics.
ReplyDeleteI always thought is silly that in a place like Rome that has to be crawling with clerics and religious, that they would ever "need" to have even many laymen serve Mass let alone have women do anything. It is appalling that they have lay men and women do the readings, especially in Papal Masses. Again, in Rome, how many instituted lectors are there, not to mention actual clerics and even lower ranked seminarians?
During my time in the seminary, I remember being at our cathedral for an ordination at which this same kind of thing was inflicted upon us. Here we were, recently instituted lectors, sitting in choir while they had laypeople trot up to the old pulpit to do all the readings. What is even the point to "institute" men lectors in seminary if they get passed over at a Pontifical Mass at their own cathedral in favor of laymen? The whole thing is just ridiculous.
As to the Church "sinning" against women, this is just modernist nonsense. The Church never "sinned" against women and the secularist ideas of egalitarianism are not a liberation in any proper sense of the word.
In the Sacrosanctum Concilium doc, it states there that only MEN, clerics or not, should wear the Alb WITH a Amice and a Cincture, unless if designed that they be removed/not necessary.
ReplyDeleteAndrew, I noticed that some lay ministers serve at the Altar, when I, the Acolyte must serve and they just make me lose my head off because they shrug me off.
The alb is the proper vestment of the laity, in fact. That's fact, not feeling. Where would you get the idea it is exclusively sacerdotal??
ReplyDeleteIt is the cassock and surplice that should not be worn by laity, including but not limited to: seminarians, altar servers, choirs....