Far and wide, only small numbers of people are allowed in our churches (whether that’s needful or not). That means that there are a lot of altar boys out there who haven’t been able to serve for some time.
How to keep those skills from getting rusty.
Don’t let a crisis go to waste!
MEN! Get your shoes on!
Ultimate Fr. Z kudos!
If you do not laugh out loud a couple time, you had better go find yourself another … you know… laughing thing.
Make this go “viral”… if you get me. 131 views as of this posting.
UPDATE 30 April:
UPDATE 1 May:
Look what happened!
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That video warmed my heart. Young fellows like him exemplify what is great about our church.
That is hilarious. I just sent it to a few of the families from my parish. I think their boys will appreciate it.
That’s both hilarious (the cow! the cat!) and moving.
This is a classic.
Just wondering if God will have us giggling for all eternity, if He has such a sense of humor to inspire human beings to this level of hilarity.
Yes, the cat and the cow, just shaking my head.
Penance, penance, penance! I found the cat and the cow cute but I found this young man to be a great example of perseverance and strength. What he did was beautiful to me and even brought tears to my eyes. We need a million more of him in this world.
Very cute….and it is already off you tube, as might be expected.
Here is a good summary of why that might be, esp for the frightening, straight-faced admission by Zuckerberg et al of why they do what they do with anything with which they disagree. And WHAT is to disagree with here?
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=553927125266189
Be afraid AND speak up, at least, against such loss of freedom.
Heeelarious! I had to show my “Unemployed Altar Boys” the original clip of Rocky’s workout fom RockyII b/c they didn’t quite get the full hilarity of the reference until they saw it… Here’s the original in case any beknighted altar boys don’t quite get it either.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eMhDQFLwrAA Thanks for the laugh.
Fantastic. The 12- and 14-year-old altar boys here loved it.
“Hey, Yo! Faddah Carmine! Faddah Carmine? You home? Yeah, I’m goin ta milk the cows right now, but I was wonderin’ if you could do me a small favah. Hey, you know, with this whole COVID thing, you know, if I can’t serve Mass anytime soon, if you could throw me down a blessing, so that if I get kicked by the cow, you know, it won’t be too bad, you know?”
**REMOVES HAT**
“In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti.”
“Hey, thanks a lot, Faddah, I appreciate it. I gotta go — I’m so late. I can hear Bossy mooing from here.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSZAa-vapLA
That was fantastic. A huge BZ to that young man and his wonderful parents!
======>ArthurH
It’s still on YT — watched it just now. Very clever!
Woot! Sent it around to our TLM troops!
Loved this! I have 3 boys who serve at the Latin Mass. I can’t wait to show them this!
Governor of Iowa relented. Churches open!!!
About 6 or 7 years ago Blackfriar Films made a video that moved me, it was called “Come My Way”, and the more I watched it (a lot) the more I enjoyed it. This video is in that vein, just excellent.
I will share this with my entire family, and hope the young ones are inspired by the visual of this incredible young man expending his physical and spiritual energy on such a beautiful endeavor.
Whoever did this, brilliant, kudos to all, and oh, if only we had a world of young knights like this one. Thank you to him, the creators, and to you Fr. Z. Something really inspirational, much appreciated.
======> Tom. Thanks: I checked it out and it is indeed back. I had wanted to send it around and when I checked the address before sending there was the notice saying it was not available. Wonder what happened!?
Now, that is great! Literally laughed right out loud. Will get my boys on that workout…
The cat on the head-move is of course training for future mitre wearing.
Father Z,
Will you make a TLM priest workout video?
I’m in stitches! Great stuff.
zbless this young man and Bill Conti.
That was wonderful! The only thing missing was clouds of smoke. Got the censer swing down great, but he needs to acclimate to incense.
THAT IS AWESOME!! HA!
Gosh, I didn’t laugh, but cried! It’s so touching, as others have said also. God bless this young man and all others who stay strong.
@JustaSinner – the governor may have relented, but the bishops are not ready to step up and out yet. Charity prevents me from commenting further.
https://iowacatholicconference.org/2020/04/iowa-bishops-letter-regarding-provision-of-sunday-masses-april-28-2020/
Just sent this video to all of my servers with the message, “What are YOU doing?”.
This is good wholesome Catholic humor that, in the face of the laughable situation in which we find ourselves these day, we need far more of!
Thanks a lot for this inspirational link, Father! My 11 year old son, who loves altar serving and playing the trumpet, was just mesmerised by this video. His trumpet quartet played this very piece at a concert in November! He watched the video three times in a row. Then he asked if he was going to serve on Sunday – of course, I said. YES, YES, YES!, he shouted :-) (Public Masses are allowed again in our diocese since last Sunday.)
This was great! My 11-year-old altar boy really enjoyed it!
I’ve been at church every Sunday doing the live streams. My son asked me one day if he could come with me to serve. I explained the limitations and told him I would rather leave it up to our priest to decide who to schedule. He was on the verge of tears! I had no idea serving meant so much to him. A couple weeks after that he did have his chance and really appreciated it. Our parish is blessed with a LOT of altar boys and I’m sure so many miss doing their job.
I’ve noticed that my son has been, of his own accord, dressing in his “church clothes” every Sunday to watch the live streams at home. The night before Easter he laid out a nice outfit complete with tie! I was so moved by that. I’m supposed to be teaching him, but he’s teaching me.
Confidential to the family that made this video, and to Fr.Z.
This was posted under “lighter fare” but I am dead serious. This video made me laugh, and then in showing it to my boys, it slowly lifted me out of a pit of post-apocalyptic globalist Billinda Gates vax-tattoo dystopian gulag fears. My unemployed acolyte home team was calling out “thurible” “book!” haha “that’s exactly what it feels like when you kneel on your cassock buttons!” “The cat is the itch on your head that you can’t scratch!” We had such a fun time, me showing them the original Rocky’s Run and the whole Rocky thing. It picked up my head and put my sights on the hope that Mass, public Mass will return, and our job is to be ready. I knew that, you know, but I was letting my fears get the better of me. I just wanted to say thanks. Sometimes even the lighter fare goes deeper than you might know.
Even us Orthodox liked it. I’m sending it around to our altar boys.
A boy, a cat and a cow! The boy was running. At last I can use the elementary Scottish Gaelic vocabulary I have been learning online (ancestral language) in a real context!
Balach, cat, bo. Bha am balach a’ ruith….
(I omitted the accent on bo. Sometimes they don’t render properly when I post. )
[Use special characters code.]
http://www.unicodetools.com/unicode/convert-to-html.php
The video was so well done. It managed to combine serious spiritual realities, sacrifice, perseverance, self-discipline, fervor, with light-hearted clips, the nosy cow, the kitties. That’s hard to do. I loved the disciplined prayer. The sun moved across the sky, but he stayed in prayer. That’s a challenge to represent in images.
The server seems uninterested in self or image, he’s entirely focused, there was no show-boating.
He’s young, but he’s completely serious about his training, as serious as any athlete, and you can see the not-too distant man, in this boy. I couldn’t help but think about his parents. The Rocky theme was entirely appropriate for this video, because what he’s representing requires something heroic, something that really asks something of you, not as a boy, but as a man. A lot of men wouldn’t have that discipline. In this video, this young man is a Knight.
Balach, cat, bò. Bha am balach a’ ruith.
(I couldn’t access the unicode conversion page yesterday).