Altar servers from around Australia are preparing to gather in Brisbane in January for the national conference of the Guild of St Stephen.
The 2014 event marks 60 years of the Guild’s presence in Australia, and 50 years since the first national conference.
National director of the Guild of St Stephen Fr Danai Penollar told The Record the three-day conference has a number of purposes.
“Once in a while you want to bring [servers] together in accord with our objectives and statutes in the Guild, to unite servers of different parishes and dioceses,” he said.
“It’s also to encourage them to stay on serving. It’s no use having the best standards if they’re dropping out, so we’re trying to affirm them in their ministry and encourage them in what they’re doing.
“At the same time, the conference is trying to teach them a little bit more about their faith and about serving itself, and the reasons behind why we do what we do.”
Fr Danai said children often altar serve until they reach high school, after which they cease serving.
“Primarily, there are high school students attending [the conference], but we have primary school kids attending as well and it helps for them to see that there are kids who keep serving.”
Attendees at the conference will learn how to serve some of the more complicated Masses, such as those involving a Bishop, as well as other skills, including the correct use of the thurible.
“We pray the Divine Office and we teach them the Gloria Patri and the Our Father in Latin,” Fr Danai said. “In the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, it says the two prayers that Roman Rite Catholics should know in Latin are the Our Father and the Creed.”
The Sydney-based priest said some applicants have inquired about learning the rubrics of the Extraordinary Form, and that “there’s some hints” of it possibly being included at future conferences.
Although he described the Guild of St Stephen as being in the “stages of re-building” in Australia, Fr Danai said altar servers from WA, South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland would be present at the conference.
The last conference attracted 100 participants, but Fr Danai is hopeful of reaching the 150 mark in 2014, with the gradual spread of the Guild since 2012.
“It’s grown a little bit more, we’ve got a new director in Lismore, we’ve linked up with Port Pirie diocese as well, and a bit more with Bunbury,” he said. “We’re in negotiations to get a director for the Perth Archdiocese… and we’ve linked up strongly with Melbourne.”
The conference is open to both males and females, although 85 per cent of attendants in 2012 were male.
Fr Danai said one of the objects of the Guild is to develop the servers’ prayer life.
“It’s ingrained in our statutes and objectives to foster vocations to priesthood and religious life by building up the prayer life of those who serve at the altar,” he said.
“We try to involve seminarians, so the servers can see progression from altar serving and then thinking of priesthood. We’ve had people who have gone from serving to the seminary; some of them are studying in Rome now in fact.”
The January 15-18 conference is open to committed altar servers between the ages of 10 and 17, and includes talks, workshops, recreation, Mass and prayer. To register before December 12, go to www.guildofststephen.org.au.