In Praise of Altar Servers

Last Thursday, we celebrated a funeral in our parish of Holy Rosary. Nothing unusual in that. The one constant of life is the inevitability of death.

This particular funeral was that of a priest, Rev. Dominic Hahn. He was born in 1937, was baptized and grew up in our parish, graduated from our parish school, became a Benedictine monk, and wasn’t ordained until he was well into his forties. He celebrated his first Mass at Holy Rosary Church on June 26, 1980 and went on to serve as assistant pastor.

He specifically requested that his funeral be conducted at our parish of Holy Rosary.

The celebrant was the Very Rev. Daniel Mueggenborg, Auxiliary Bishop of Seattle. The concelebrants included the Right Rev. Neal Roth, O.S.B., Abbot of Saint Martin’s, the Very Rev. Gary Zender, Vicar for Clergy of the Archdiocese of Seattle, and Rev. Michael Wagner, Priest Administrator of Holy Rosary.

There were probably twenty additional priests of the archdiocese here as well.

Despite this being a Thursday afternoon, we managed to put together a team of nine altar servers – three from the school, three homeschooled, and three adults.

The servers did a great job. Several of the priests in attendance, including said Vicar for Clergy and the Bishop’s MC, Rev. James Johnson, mentioned to me how reverent and precise they were.

One particular incident stands out to me.

When I mentioned to the Bishop that the servers traditionally prayed Psalm 43 (42) and its antiphon from the old Prayers at the Foot of the Altar with the Priest before Mass, his Excellency seemed dubious.

We pray them in English from a poster we put together, copies of which hang in the narthex (for the weekend and feast Masses) and the Vesting Sacristy (for daily Mass).

With the servers gathered, the Bishop quietly and hesitantly began the prayer. We were crowded into the Sacristy, and most of the servers there couldn’t see the poster. But most of them had by now memorized the prayer, so the response was strong and in unison. I think the Bishop was a little stunned by the volume of the response.

The surprised Bishop continued on, his voice much stronger and all hesitation gone. We finished the prayer and processed out. And, as I said, a not inconsiderable number of priests praised them after the Mass.

It does my heart good to see them being recognized for their efforts. They truly did a magnificent job.

What was interesting to me was that so many of the priests clearly wanted their Altar Servers to serve like this.

I empathize with them.

The ars celebrandi of the Sacred Liturgy suffered a collapse in the 1970s and 1980s. In the past decade or two the seminaries have recovered for the most part, and so improved the liturgical sense of the younger priests, but it has proven difficult to reverse the liturgical decline in the Altar Servers.

At least part of this is that the priests themselves are stretched so thin that they can’t spend the time required to (re)build this ministry.

Part of the problem is also lowered expectations.

Altar Servers perform a critical function in the Sacred Liturgy, particularly in the Mass. Certainly, a Priest doesn’t require an Altar Server to celebrate Mass, but well-trained Servers not only assist the Priest but can also lead the people more deeply into prayer. And in terms of duties during the Mass, servers actually have more to do in the Ordinary Form than they do in the Extraordinary Form.

But even if you did have the time and inclination to properly train Altar Servers, there are almost no good reference works on how to do so. The liturgical documents are maddeningly vague on the duties, comportment, and training needs of Altar Servers.

When Father Maurer rebooted our Altar Server program four years ago and then volunteered me to lead the effort, the only useful manuals for training Altar Servers were put together at the parish level and shared online.

Oh, there were so-called “guidebooks for Altar Servers” produced by major Catholic publishers, but most of what they contain is information our Apprentice Servers know after an initial training session and a couple of weeks of serving. They were, in a word, useless.

Of far more value were the books I found on serving in the Extraordinary Form – the Traditional Latin Mass. These books were typically precise, well organized, and contained useful diagrams and illustrations.

In particular, the two I found most useful were Father Carmody’s Learning to Serve and especially Dom Matthew Britt‘s How to Serve¹.

Unfortunately, the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite are very different, and while these books were great foundationally, they obviously did not address the logistics of the Ordinary Form. So what could we do? We wrote our own book and distributed that to the Servers.

Obviously, not every parish can do this. It was a tremendous amount of effort and work. What we really need is something like Dom Matthew Britt’s masterpiece, only for the Ordinary Form.

Recently I ran across a book that very nearly fits that bill. Unfortunately, after one printing in 1980 in Australia, it fell out of print and was never reprinted.

That book is called Ministry at the Altar, and its author is then-Reverend now-Bishop Peter J. Elliott.

Monsignor Elliott has several other books that we use on a regular basis in our liturgical planning. His writing is clear and precise and follows the rubrics. My copies of his Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite and Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year are well-loved and worn. I was eager to get a copy of his book for Servers.

I managed to obtain a copy through interlibrary loan, and I promptly photocopied it.

It is exactly the book I wish I’d had when we were formulating our program. It is slightly dated – both the Roman Missal and the General Instruction of the Roman Missal have had some changes since 1980 – but it is remarkably useful.

It tells the server what to do and when to do it. There are separate sections for the Mass, the Sacraments, and other celebrations, as well as chapters on Holy Week and serving a Bishop. It’s tragic that it hasn’t been updated and republished.

The publication and popularization of something like this book can help turn the tide on reforming the state of many parish Altar Server programs. A priest who shall remain nameless suggested to me that I should write a new version. I hope he was kidding.

Perhaps there are other things we can do. There used to be national and even international confraternities of Altar Servers that provided for consistent training and fellowship. Our parish was once part of such a group, the Knights of the Altar. Largely, these groups have vanished, particularly in the United States. Perhaps it’s time they made a comeback so that each parish isn’t isolated and trying to do these things on their own.

We have great Altar Servers at Holy Rosary. They are disciplined and reverent. They are eager to learn, and they are (for the most part) serious about their ministry. I would hope that every parish in the world has parishioners like this willing and ready to serve.

What they most need to succeed in this great calling is good spiritual and practical direction. We have many holy pastors who can and do provide for their spiritual direction; now we need good and consistent resources and training so that they can serve at the altar of the Lord with reverence and discipline and precision.

1. Dom Matthew Britt was actually ordained in our parish church when it was a monastic church, and he celebrated his first Mass here. I like to think that we retain a bit of his spirit in the place. Certainly, I pray for his intercession in our Altar Server program.