St Stephen's Handbook for Altar Servers

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Altar serving is important: working as a team with other ministers, servers have special responsibility which, when well done, help the whole congregation to pray better and to join in worship as a community.

This handbook will help altar servers to develop a fuller understanding of what they are doing. It is presented by the Guild of St Stephen which for over eighty years has been training and assisting altar servers. If gives in very simple terms an understanding of what the worship of the Church is, and how the altar server plays a part in it.

The opening chapters give an account of the nature of the Church as the community of believers, each with their part to play and of the Mass, the central act of worship. A general chapter o ‘hints on serving' is followed by a detailed guide to serving at Mass, both in it's simple and it's solemn history of the Guild and of its patron saints follow. The books concludes with a section of prayers for servers.

As Cardinal Humne says in his preface, the book is ‘not only a guide to a correct way of serving, but also a key to a deeper understanding of what we are really doing when we come together to worship God'