By the time I learned to serve Mass, I was 23 years old and already accepted into the seminary. Therefore, I have no idea what motivates kids to become “altar boys” and “altar girls.”

I use inverted commas because I’m conscious of Bishop Elliott’s remarks in his excellent Liturgical Question Box:

Let us never use the trivial terms “altar girls” or “altar boys”. The term “servers” is the correct description of the ministries set out in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, no. 68.

I don’t know what insight lies behind this scene. But given that it comes from a sitcom which its creator calls “semi-autobiographical”, there must be something in it: