[Desdemona]

No more Sodality? You've got to be kidding. EVERY parish here has a healthy Sodality. Woman give up an evening to chat without their husbands around? Yeah, right. (that's why I never joined. No single guys)

I've always wondered how many altar girls serve because THEY want to rather than their mothers wanting them to. In my old parish, the boys rarely showed up when it was an exclusive honor. Many a Mass Father would walk down the isle with only a lector. By the gospel, there was usually a full compliment as parents would send their boys up.

Now those amorphous, icky albs...they're just not classy.

[VermiciousKnid]

Wow, you and I have had very different experiences.

When I was a girl, the Sodality was HUGE -- there were a hundred girls in it, at least -- and we girls were very active indeed. Of course, we helped the adult members with decorating the church for holidays, we performed the 40 Hours during Passion Week, held the May Coronation (Last year, this lovely tradition was brought back to our parish), and on Easter Sunday...well...on Easter Sunday we pulled out all the stops: A procession which included ALL the altar boys (dressed appropriately, BTW), ALL the adult members of the Sodality, the Knights of Columbus, the Rosary Altar Society, and we girls...resplendent in white dresses (in our Communion dresses if we still fit into them), carrying lilies and wearing either blue chapel caps (for those too young to have received First Communion), white chapel caps (for those of us between First Communion and Confirmation), or white chapel veils for the older girls. They broke out the monstrance and the incense & a grand old time was had by all. It was great (but BOY is it cold at 6:00am when you're wearing white knee socks!)

Now? Now there's NONE of that. I think it's a crying shame.

Regards,