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At one time, at the same time, the five Grasso brothers—Michael, 19; Thomas, 18; Joseph, 17; Nicholas, 15 and Paul, 11—were altar servers at St. Columba’s parish in Chester. But with Michael and Thomas now in college, the duties have been relegated to their three younger brothers.
All three remember having a case of the jitters the first time they served. The processional and recessional rattled Joseph, who was aware that the congregants’ eyes were focused on him.
“After awhile, I figured, all these people know me by now,” and that there was no reason to be afraid, he said.
Sitting in the pew as a parishioner, basically, “you’re one foot in, one foot out” and able to socialize somewhat, Joseph said, while serving at the altar requires attentiveness at all times.
“You’re right there, with Jesus—you can’t talk to anybody else—and you just get so into it,” he said.
“That’s helped me understand what really goes on at the Mass, how really sacred what’s going on is,” he added. “That’s just something I really love about serving; I really learn from it.”
Catholics’ belief in the Real Presence—that Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist—is paramount to Joseph from his up close and personal perspective as an altar server. At the moment of consecration, when the officiating priest changes the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ, the fact that “something changes” is apparent, Joseph said.
“Something changes after he raises the host in the air and he raises the chalice in the air—if you’re that close to it, you feel it,” he explained. “You feel Jesus present there, you feel more of a fullness inside your heart. You feel more a part of it when you’re right next to the priest when he’s doing the consecration.”
Back in the day, the older brothers taught the younger brothers the basics of serving. “When we were younger,” Joseph recalled, there was some, although not much, “chippy” behavior among the five over who was to be assigned which duty. “The oldest one definitely liked to boss,” Joseph joked, then added in earnest, “I wouldn’t say that I’m innocent of bossing.”
Nicholas remembers the nay saying by his older brothers when he asked to carry the processional cross. “Carrying the cross is a big deal. They said, ‘You’re not big enough to carry the cross,’ so I left that job to them.” But he was just as happy to be assigned alternate tasks, such as ringing the bells at the consecration.
There’s no quibbling now, though. “It’s just like, whoever’s at the right place at the right time, or in the most convenient spot to do it,” Joseph said.
And while the eldest two brothers got the title of teacher, they also get the credit for two close calls, according to their younger brothers.
Michael, the oldest, had an incident with incense that inadvertently ignited a mop in the altar boys’ room, so goes the Grasso brothers’ story. Unknown to Michael, who was alone in the room, “one of the pieces of charcoal had popped,” Joseph explained in the retelling of the thurible affair. That caused stray sparks to fly and, subsequently, the mop to smolder.
When Michael returned awhile later to the room that smelled of smoke, he doused the mop with water and saved not only the day but perhaps the church as well.
You might even say Thomas made his mark, or left a lasting impression, before he hung up his server’s cassock for the last time. The aptly named “Thomas Memorial Rug” is a testament to that.
As Joseph retells another thurible affair, this one involving his second-oldest brother Thomas, he disclosed that there exists to this day a debate about how the event transpired. The former pastor, Father Thomas Curley, now administrator of St. Sylvia’s parish in Tivoli, and altar server Thomas Grasso were exchanging the thurible of incense.
“Somewhere, between either him passing it to Father or Father passing it to him, it fell and hit the ground and burned through the rug,” Joseph said. “That’s why there’s a new rug at the altar at St. Columba’s” atop the sanctuary-length old rug. “They call [the old rug] the Thomas Memorial for Father Thomas Curley and my brother Thomas.”
For these reasons and many more the two eldest Grasso brothers can be assured they are thought of fondly and never forgotten at St. Columba’s.
The faithful service of the five Grasso brothers is unique in one sense, but it exemplifies the dedication of all the altar servers at the parish, said Father John Bonnici, pastor of St. Columba’s since 2008.
“It’s been a joy to watch them grow up over the past six years,” he said.
“Their parents have instilled in them a true appreciation of Church, a love of the sacrament and a genuine respect for everything about the Mass,” Father Bonnici continued. “That’s very visible in the way they serve and enjoy being part of a parish and its life. They’re good boys.”
Father Bonnici said he is encouraged by the enthusiasm of the Grasso brothers and the other servers, “that young people are still very ready, eager and willing to serve at the altar.”
Joseph is a junior at John S. Burke Catholic High School in Goshen; Nicholas is a sophomore there. Paul is homeschooled.
While it may be tempting for altar servers to scan the congregation to see who of their friends is at a particular Mass, what Nicholas likes best about serving is his ability to truly concentrate. “When you’re looking at the chalice being raised and the host being raised, you feel almost like a connection between you and Jesus. There’s nothing around you to distract you.”
But when Nicholas was 9, he could have used a distraction at an early Sunday morning Mass after being up late on Saturday night. “I fell asleep” serving Mass, he recalled. “The priest woke me up. And I fell asleep again. And he had to wake me up again. I think he woke me up three times.”
After Mass, the priest told him nicely to go home and go to bed, he said.
Funeral Masses have provided many teachable moments in the faith for Nicholas, in particular the funeral of a 12-year-old boy he didn’t know. “It taught me that we never know when we’re going to go. We could die tomorrow, so we’ve always got to be ready. We have to live our lives like it’s the last minute. Whenever we do something wrong, we should think about how it hurts God. We have to try to be as good as we can.”
“Weddings are just happy,” Joseph said of serving at the sacrament of holy matrimony. “It kind of hits you—this is a celebration of life, a celebration of living, especially in our Catholic faith.”
Joseph’s served his fair share of baptisms, including for a number of his siblings. Michael and Teresa Grasso are the proud parents of nine: five sons, four daughters. “I’ve only done a couple baptisms that weren’t for my family,” Joseph said. “It’s nice to help out to welcome your sibling or your cousin into the Church, to bring them into what you’re a part of and what you believe in.”
Although there is no place for raucous laughter at the altar, there have been some close calls for Paul, particularly when his cousin James is seated in the pews and tries to make him laugh. “He makes faces at me,” Paul said. “I try not to look at him.”
But when Paul is tempted to dart his eyes to the people in the pews, he inevitably makes contact with his mother, who gently redirects his gaze back to Christ on the cross. “She just points at Jesus, so I focus,” Paul said.
“I just feel closer to God” when serving at the altar, Paul said. “I feel like I participate more when I’m serving because I’m right there with Him.”
Paul said one of the things he likes best about being an altar boy is “being up there with my brothers. It’s all fun. I like it a lot.”
“I wanted to grow up so fast so I could be an altar boy and be on the altar with them. And now I’m happy I made that decision. It’s great to serve.”
