A Witness of Faith to the Community

Bringing children up in the faith today can be difficult. This ministry seeks, more than anything, to encourage the young to fully engage our faith through their service to the Church as ministers of the altar. Serving at the altar give the young a hands-on, personal experience of God’s work in the liturgy. It also can be an opportunity for them to work alongside other children and adults and be edified by their witness of faith. Through their service, youth altar servers provide the parish with a n example of service, they witness to the seriousness and solemnity of the liturgy, and they inspire those who come to Mass with hope for the future of our Church. The Saint Cecilia Altar Guild is open to any boy who has received 1^st Communion through college graduation. 
 

Learning at the Foot of the Altar

This program seeks to provide the basic structure for a process of instruction that will allow youth servers to continually progress in their knowledge and love of both the liturgy and the tradition of the Church as they grow older. It seeks to accomplish this by fostering a community that trains and forms the servers through positive mentoring relationships between youth servers and priests, deacons, sacristans, adult servers, other youth servers, and other parishioners.


Growing in Service at the Lord’s Altar
 
As they grow in experience and in dedication to their ministry, altar servers will progress through ranks, or stages, that encourage and recognize their progress and allow them to take on more responsibility. There will be both an experience and an educational requirement for the server to progress to the next rank, and each rank will have specific duties associated with it, and will require more commitment from the server and his family. The ranks will be titled according to the various ways that servers minister at the altar, beginning with more simple tasks and becoming more complicated as follows:

• Novice
• Crucifer
• Junior Acolyte
• Senior Acolyte
• Thurifer
• Master of Ceremonies 

Servers of higher rank may often be called upon to function in the liturgy according to a lower rank, e.g. a Thurifer may function as a Senior Acolyte at Mass most weekends. However, if at all possible, servers should not carry out the functions of a higher rank until they have reached it.

For more information about joining the Altar Guild as an Altar Server, please fill out the form below: