98: It's written on my heart to have a deep commitment to service

Episode 98 Paul explains how he came to be first a Catholic, then an altar server, and now Honorary Lay President of the Guild of St Stephen. He shares a feeling of 'being called to serve God in this way' and the gospel text, 'You did not choose me, I chose you,' speaks to him particularly. Based on Paul's early experience of going into a church for the first time 'out of sheer curiosity,' he challenges us to 'unlock our churches' so that others might do the same today.

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Guild of St Stephen

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Transcript

You're listening to All Kinds of Catholic with me, Theresa Alessandro.  My conversations with different Catholics will give you glimpses into some of the ways we're living our faith today.  Pope Leo, quoting St Augustine, reminds us, Let us live well and the times will be good.  We are the times.  I hope you feel encouraged and affirmed and sometimes challenged as I am in these conversations.  Join our podcast community, get news and background information about the conversations and share your thoughts if you want to. You can get the newsletter and each episode straight to your inbox by going to allkindsofcatholic.substack.com and clicking on subscribe. It's free. That web address is in the episode notes too and I'd love you to draw closer to our community. Thank you.

Listeners, thanks so much for joining today. I'm joined by Paul today, who is the honorary president of the Guild of St Stephen for altar servers. We're going to talk about that and find out a bit more about it and find out how people are involved. So welcome, Paul. 

Thank you. Good to be with you. 

So let's see, shall we? Tell us what the Guild of St Stephen is first then, maybe Paul. 

Yeah, so the Guild of St Stephen is in a sense an association to which parishes become affiliated. Originally, if we go back to day one, it was all set up on Westminster Cathedral. Father Hamilton MacDonald, at a parish local there around the area in Hammersmith, had set up this guild to promote good serving, good standards of serving, to help provide servers with a greater understanding of why they do what they do, not just going through the motions, but having that deeper sense of understanding. And that caught the attention of the Archbishop at the time, Archbishop Bourne. And it was set up as a place that all parishes could then become part of. And over time, it's evolved into something slightly bigger than just in Westminster now. It's based in the UK and we do have affiliations across the world. Now that came about 120 years ago. We're in that anniversary year now, 120 years since St Pius X heard about this guild that had been set up in Westminster because it was having great success. Pope Pius Xth raised us from a Guild, a confraternity, to an Archconfraternity. That means that people not just in the locality but elsewhere would then affiliate, become part of this association. So that's how it's grown and we've got parishes all over. 

Yes, I think my own children, when they were alter-servers, belonged to the Guild. I think as a parent back then, I appreciated that there was little booklets and there was a medal that they wore that brought them into this Guild, that it was organised, that there was some structure that they belonged to and some education about what they were doing and why they were doing it. 

Yes, so that sort of brings into focus then the role of the Central Council and our role as Honorary President and all the various councillors. It's very much our role under the direction of a National Director. That National Director is appointed by the Archbishop of Westminster, which is our home, our seat, as a team of people who are experienced in service in some way.  We all work to, I wouldn't say give direction because each parish has its own governance, its own way of operating, its own traditions and all the rest of it. But we sort of, set a tone. I don't know if that's the correct phrase to use. So, we provide the medals. So, the medals are probably the most visible part of the Guild. All altar servers that become a member, are enrolled into the Guild, will then wear this medal.  And at the heart of that medal is the Chi Rho, the XP. Greek letters for the name of Christ. So that lays on our heart because that is ultimately whom we serve. It's not about ourselves, not about looking good and wearing a frock. That is immaterial. It's ultimately about who we are serving because He has called us to this service in, usually, a very personal way. So, it's our role as a Guild to keep that focus. So, you know, we'll plan events because this is one of our objectives that, yes, while we're not an overarching body that determines how things are done. We're more of a body that encourages good practice, provides resources for good practice and good standards of serving, but also bringing us together so we can collectively have events. So, take national Masses that we do every year where parishes will come together. The Archbishop of Westminster, thank God, will be doing our national Mass this year in 2026. In October, we come together to share in our common, our commonality as altar servers. What it means, how we can encourage each other and support each other. 

Okay, that sounds great. And as always, I think there's a great benefit to people being part of something bigger, lifting your eyes a little bit above your own role into what everybody's doing together. You mentioned there about feeling that you're serving God and that you're called in a personal way. Tell us a bit about you then, how you came to be involved in altar serving beyond childhood and young adulthood.

Yeah, well, it was never, never my intention. Quite simply, when I was growing up, I wasn't part of a Catholic home. I wasn't baptised. I didn't go to church. I had no concept of church in a sense. And it was only when one day out of sheer curiosity, I said to my two friends I was with, Do you fancy going and having a look in this church? And don't get me wrong, it wasn't mischievous in any way. It was just sheer curiosity. And from that moment I stepped into that church of Our Lady Star of the Sea, I just felt something. I can't describe it. The passage of the gospel that I keep going back to is, You did not choose me, I chose you. And that has always been very resonant in my mind, both from being an altar server and also discerning a vocation to the diaconate. So yeah, and I just remember returning to the church on my own, for Mass. And then I remember going, I think I was only about eight or nine and I was going back for morning prayer because there was always morning prayer before the morning Mass, about five to eight before I went off to school.  Something happened in me and I cannot describe it. I cannot put my finger on it other than I just felt the call to go and I wanted to be there and I wanted to know all about it, to learn about it. You know, why we're wearing purple today, why we're wearing green today, why does that go there?  And this just went on and on and on. To the point that when I was received into the church eventually at 13, the parish priest at the time, God rest him, actually said to me, Paul's haunted this church for five years, just wanting to know everything and be involved with everything. And it was a week later, after I was received that one of the senior servers just came up to me and said, Paul, would you like to come on the sanctuary? I've never been one for standing in front of groups of people. I found it absolutely frightening at the thought. But no, I said, Okay, yeah, we'll give it a shot and see how we go. And so I joined, learned the ropes, received my Guild medal a year later, and I was absolutely proud as punch. It was only when I was just turned 18 that the MC at the time, the master of ceremonies at the time, had decided to retire. So everyone was just looking at me thinking, Well Paul, you seem to be the one in the right place at the right time. And yes, I just embraced it. Very supportive parish priest. And you know, we built the team up. At one point we had 44 servers in that parish. Yeah, we built it up. One of the things that was particularly important to me was this isn't just about, as I said, going through the motions. It was how can we involve the parents as well?  How can we run prayer evenings? Prayer and pizza nights are always popular. I do wonder if the motivation is more the pizza. But that said, they came and we would have Confession nights, we'd have prayer nights, we'd go bowling. So it became a youth group that was at the centre of it, our altar serving, that XP over our hearts. was Christ. He was the centre of what we were about. 

There's so much there to encourage us. I'm so moved by you as a child being drawn into the church and finding your way, from no background in the church. I think that’s hugely encouraging for us  to remind ourselves that God can work with us where he finds us, and to see what you've achieved. I know you won't want to think of it as your own achievements, but in answering that call and in working with the Lord, in praying I'm sure and discerning a way forward together with the Lord. You've achieved a great deal there in bringing lots of people together and taking seriously their commitment to be altar servers. Somehow then you've reached the heady heights of honorary president of the Guild. I guess it's not a hierarchy really, but I was noticing on the website that a lot of people in roles in the Guild previously were from Westminster, just because I suppose that's where the base has been. And it seemed unusual now that somebody from the Lancaster diocese has been recognised in this way. How did that happen? 

Well, Almighty God's got a sense of humour is what I will say, because very similar to how I set out originally at the age of eight, I wasn't looking for this. It was never in my psyche. I was keen to be involved because I felt I've got energy.  Well, I used to have a lot of energy, I’ve got the energy, I've got the time and just something keeps pushing me. I've come to the realisation, just naturally, it's written on my heart to have a very deep sense of commitment to service. And I think that is what truly drives me. So. you know, organising things from in the parish at St. Anne's and then latterly up here in Workington. I was involved, getting more involved in the Diocesan level, of organising a Diocesan Mass in Lancaster, having a Servers Dinner where the older servers could come together and share their stories, their journeys, and the younger people would hear all this. And that dinner still continues to this day. It is such a fulfilling experience, just an older server sharing their journey and the young people just absorbing all that and trying to piece all this together for them. And then just one thing goes to another and that - who is the national director now, Father Keith Stoakes. I came in contact with him because of the diocesan work I was doing back in the day. And we sort of just stayed in touch and somebody then says, Now Paul would you be interested in a role on the Central Council?  Oh, does it involve lots of trips to London or all these kinds of conversations going on? Okay, we'll give it a shot and see where we go.  You can sort of sense what gifts you've got that the Lord's given you and where they then start fitting. And you start fitting yourself into where you feel it needs to be. And it was only when I was attending a Mass in Wolverhampton for the Archdiocese of Birmingham that one of my colleagues in the Central Council just said to me, I'd like to propose you for being president. I went, Oh, don't be daft. I could tell they were deadly serious and I just never thought of it. And so yes, it was proposed. Here I am. 

Congratulations. You sound to me like the right person at the right time. Tell us a bit about, I often think, you know, when we're getting ready for big services in the church, big events, you mentioned national Masses, how do you feel as someone who's got some responsibility for how that's going to work on the day up there on the sanctuary? Do altar servers feel filled with nerves?  Or do you feel kind of like you're looking forward to it? Or is it a terrible combination of those things? 

It's a whole medley. It is a real medley of emotions. Because I always say there's a pinch of excitement in there. And I think that, you know, that's a God-given excitement because at the end of the day, we're coming to give Him honour and glory and to bring people together. And this is all part of our faith experience; this shared faith experience that we can celebrate.  It does go through processes. It's like, you know, we're meeting today during Holy Week and it's daunting to think we've got the Easter liturgies coming. I've got the list of names of the people that are going to be attending. I now need to slot those names into the places. We've got the rehearsals organised, so everybody knows what they're doing and they all feel comfortable. So yeah, there's always that dread and daunting side of it. But then equally, once that subsides, it’s about everybody just coming together.  We pray together, we discuss everything together, and we just go out there and do it. At the end of the day, we're not inventing something here. The Holy Church in her great wisdom provides everything. The liturgy is the liturgy. It's written in the missal, and it's there for us just to enter into that and bring that into existence, bring that alive in that sense of prayer and humility. There's always this thing sometimes when you're planning that, I just have to remind myself, Paul, you're not inventing anything here. It's there, it's given to us, it's beautiful. All we need to do is enter into it and just bring that to life. And that truly is sometimes how I see the role of the server. It's bringing the red writing in the missal to life and doing it well and doing it prayerfully, all focussed on Christ. 

That reminds me of something years ago when my children were at Diocesan Mass for altar servers and we had Bishop Malcolm McMahan as he was then and he said something about, It's really important for our altar servers to - well what were his words - to show us how important the liturgy is by the way they lift up the things that we want to notice and that we recognise as sacred. He said it much better than I'm saying it. But it struck me that he was a bit like you're saying, he was illustrating for us that he thought of their role as being lifting up the things that are there and just demonstrating how seriously we're taking these parts of the liturgy. 

Absolutely. Well, it's like when you think of Holy Mass, there are two particular high points, the reading of the Gospel and the Consecration. When we have the reading of the Gospel, you know, if we have high Mass, there's a thurifer, an altar server with the thurible. There's two altar servers with candlesticks who then lead the deacon or priest to the pulpit or the lectern, the ambo, or whatever. And then the candles stand either side and they're turned in looking towards the Gospel. They're speaking to the people, signposting them to say, Look, listen, Jesus is speaking. Likewise, when they're kneeling with six torches at the steps of the sanctuary and the thurifer in the middle and then the host is elevated, again we’re signposting, it's leading people in worship. It's not about us, it's about, look, there he is, Jesus is present. 

That's beautiful, thank you Paul. Now you mentioned that you are called to the diaconate. Tell us how that came about then. 

That wasn't the plan either because you know many, many years ago when I was a lot, lot younger, I think I was about 17, 16 maybe, it went through my mind about the priesthood. The Lord had other plans because I met my wife Liz who I actually went to secondary school with, so we've sort of grown up together and then I never thought of ministry for many, many years, just carried on in the serving role, moved parishes and continued up here. And we've just got 50 altar servers on the books. Not that it's about numbers, don't get me wrong, but thanks be to God, we have a good, dedicated team in this parish. Thinking of ministry, it was probably about 10 years ago, it just came back into my mind again, just a gentle nudge. What next, Paul? You know, is this going to be it? Is this you now set for the remainder of your life until you're unable to walk up the steps onto the sanctuary and then you'll have to step back? Or is there more to this?  I think that's just that faith development that when you're serving, as I say, it's never going through all the motions, but it's just kneeling there, adoring Christ present on the altar.  Just something that bit deeper sort of touches you. That nudge came. Then you get the odd, not long after that nudge, you get the parishioner or priest saying, Have you ever thought about the diaconal, Paul? There's a part of me that says, Yeah, but you know, I like what I do. I enjoy what I do. I feel comfortable where I'm at. Usually all the telltale signs, you shouldn't be feeling that way, you shouldn’t be feeling comfortable. You should be feeling quietly challenged in yourself to want to grow more in your faith. And eventually I said, Okay, you know, I'll explore it, Lord. I'll make the approach and see what happens. And that's actually been a six-year journey. Usually it's about four years, but I took a couple of years out. Again because, Nah, I don't think this is for me. It's the usual stories of formation. But I found now I’m coming up, God willing, for ordination in the summer, I've stopped fighting. I've stopped resisting. I've stopped shouting. I've stopped wanting it to be another way. I've just resigned and said, Lord, you've got this. Because when I look back over my life, and I've made some blunders, and as we all do, you know, I just sit there and I think, But Lord, you chose me. When I think back to that, what made me walk into that church? And it stuck and has stuck with me ever since. Yes, Lord, I think you are calling me to something more. You're wanting more from me. You're wanting to use my experience and my gifts in other places. Let your will be done. 

A leap of faith?  

Very much. And it's amazing, as you do various things, formation, you know, you're asked to give reflections or get involved with various groups. It is a huge leap, but it is, as you say, it's that leap of faith, it's that trust that Almighty God's got this. He will strengthen you for work where He needs you, and God is faithful. One thing throughout my life that I've come to truly, truly realise, great is His faithfulness. 

Well, I think there'll be listeners, Paul, who've got you in their prayers now until you cross that little line. How lovely. Now, some listeners might have been very alert if they've got their finger on the pulse of the Church. When you mentioned the Archbishop of Westminster, some listeners might have been thinking, Oh wait now, we've got a new Archbishop of Westminster. Have you made contact with Archbishop Richard Moth in his new role as the Archbishop of Westminster? 

We have. I sent a message of congratulation and goodwill and assurance of prayers for his ministry as our new Superior General of the Guild. I was truly touched with his response in that he recalls his time as an altar server also, and how that has affected his faith and his growth into ministry, into the priesthood, and now as Archbishop of Westminster. It was beautiful, literally the day after almost that he was installed. An email comes through confirming that he will be our principal celebrant at our National Mass.  Straight out there in the diary. Wonderful, thanks be to God. And also, we'll be having a meeting with him very soon. As usually we would meet with our Superior General every other year just to update on where things are at, where things are going and seek direction and thoughts of what our Superior General would like from the Guild. Hear from him where he thinks the Guild sits in our National Church today. Especially with this quiet revival that's going on as well, which is really encouraging. The number of people being received which I'm sure some maybe feel called to, to service at the altar maybe.

Yes, just while we're speaking about the Church more broadly then, maybe we could just think for a moment about girls and boys as altar servers. I'm sure you have discussed this a lot, but you know, once upon a time, only boys - in the time of my father, who was an altar server with his twin brother, you know, that's what boys did. And then the church has opened up this role to girls as well. You'll perhaps know the history much better than me. I guess the Guild is welcoming to boys and girls. 

Yes, absolutely. You know, I have got no figures to sort of suggest what percentages are of girls because we don't keep those kind of records, we're not here for that. But if I was to look at our national Masses, you know, there's a good spread of boys and girls right across all dioceses that I go to. I find in my parishes, there are seasons, it goes in seasons, that we sort of get boy heavy, then it eases off and we get girl heavy.

I suppose they bring their friends.

Well, yeah, and there is that and then life kicks in and they start getting jobs and Sunday morning is the only morning that they sleep in and the usual kind of things. In some ways, you know, I know there's a traditional line that vocations come from, or a lot of people relive their stories of being an altar server that's led them to the priesthood, and they've seen that as a pool to draw from, which is still the case. And I still know many, many young priests and current seminarians that have come from being altar servers. But also for me, it's broader vocational way of looking at it because we have the religious life, we've got the married life, they are critical vocations.  And in some ways my marriage and now my diaconal vocation has been born out of my service at the altar. 

And now I'm thinking of it, Paul, just because I suddenly was conscious of saying boys and girls, actually altar servers are also men and women, aren't they? 

All ages.

I guess I don't see grown women so much in the role, at least I haven't. It looks as though maybe the girls don't stay as well as boys do into adulthood. Would that be fair or am I just having too narrow a perspective? 

That's a fair assessment. I don't think there's any rhyme or reason of why that's the case. I think it's just how things naturally seem to have evolved.  I know, again, when I'm out at Diocesan Masses, I see a good blend. I think if you were to draw a pie chart in it, what you've said is quite right. You know, there's not as many, but I don't think there's any reason why. 

Well, let us encourage girls who are altar-serving at the moment then to try and hang on in there till they're older. 

Our current vice president is Catherine. She has served for many years herself and still does serve.  And she carries the role of vice president for the Guild of St. Stephen. So it's a point to be made. There we go.

Good, that's good to hear about. I'm glad I asked about it, that's great. So as we work towards the end of the conversation, Paul, maybe you could just tell us a bit about prayers and practices that mean something to you? 

I've had a great commitment to the Office of the Church. Again, I don't know where that came from. No one's ever sat me down and taught it me. But from those early years of going to morning prayer in church, that stuck. And I’ve literally prayed the Office morning prayer all my life. And only in more latter years, I would say in the last sort of 15, 20 years, I've started to go more into the Office of Readings and the whole element. One thing I do is going aside a bit, which has just struck me. I do encourage anybody listening to this, if their churches are locked on a daily basis, to unlock them. Because that is how it came to be for me, because the church happened to be open. Yeah. Just want to make that point there, because I am a great believer in churches being open and people being able to wander in when they are ready in their time and space to go and spend time with the presence of the Lord. This is truly how it worked for me. So yes, please unlock your churches. So for me, serving is praying. Praying is talking to God and all day is a prayer. This moment with you today is prayer. Almighty God is with us. He's joining with us in this moment. I have no particular specific prayer that's particularly had an impact on me. I was just thinking of the Guild St. Stephen prayer which I thought might be a nice idea to share. So this is the Guild prayer that I certainly encourage my servers before every Mass to say.

 O God, you accept our ministry and allow us to serve at your altar. Grant that while serving you, we follow the example of our patron, St Stephen, the first martyr, and that we may, like him, come to see Jesus standing at your right hand in the kingdom of heaven. We ask this through Jesus Christ, your Son. Amen.

That's our Guild prayer. And then I suppose another kind of prayer is when we are enrolled and we're asked to make a Guild promise that we're encouraged to renew every St. Stephen's Day, which happens to fall on the 26th of December, which is pretty incredibly hard when you've had a busy Christmas. We're asked as members of the Guild to offer the following. 

I offer myself to God Almighty, to Blessed Mary our mother and to our holy patron, Saint Stephen. And I promise to do my best to serve regularly with reverence and understanding for the glory of God, the service of His church, and my own eternal salvation. 

That is what every person is asked to offer at the point they receive that Guild medal. So prayer is at the heart of what we do. Prayer is what we do. When you're carrying the thurible, I'm not going to go through all the various motions of altar servers, but the thurible particularly jumps into my mind. That significance of incense, that sweet smelling smoke as prayers rise to heaven, when we’re offering those gifts at the offertory and all that sweet smelling smoke's rising up to heaven. It's all beauty, it's all very scriptural. And maybe that's a piece of work down the line for the Guild, about how we can focus more in on the scriptural basis of the Mass, so altar servers can even further understand at a deeper level the scriptural significance of what they do. This isn't just all sort of made up just to make it look good. Everything has a foundation and a reason, all leading us ultimately to Christ.  

I did know once, but I'd kind of forgotten, of course, the Guild’s named for St Stephen the first martyr. Setting the bar high there for altar servers, isn't it? 

Thank God we're not all called to be martyrs.  But then that said, in some ways, we make a choice as altar servers. We can have a lie in, just thinking if most do serve on a Sunday morning. I'm not saying all do, because we have vigils and evening Mass and all the rest. You know, you're making a sacrifice. You could be elsewhere doing other things that all your other mates are doing. But no, something makes you want to leap out of bed in the morning, put your black shoes on and run down to the church and serve Almighty God. I wouldn't quite go as far as calling it martyrdom, but you see what I mean. It’s that element of selflessness, which was very evident in St Stephen's life. 

We're going to bring the conversation to a close there, Paul. Thanks so much for spending a few minutes telling us about the Guild of St Stephen and about your life and your faith, which is so encouraging - to think of the value of having churches open so that children who know nothing about faith can go in and be called in there by the Lord and go on to live lives of faith and service. That's a great hope for us to focus on the future. So thank you so much for spending some time explaining to us what it's like being an altar server. For those of us who perhaps haven't particularly noticed our altar servers at Mass more recently, we can have a new appreciation of their service and sacrifice. And as you say, the way they are bringing the Mass to life, bringing the liturgy to life and pointing us at the things that are important as the liturgy proceeds. So thanks so much for spending some time with us. 

My pleasure. Thank you. God bless.

Thanks so much for joining me on All Kinds of Catholic this time. I hope today's conversation has resonated with you.  A new episode is released each Wednesday and you can follow All Kinds of Catholic on the usual podcast platforms.  Rate and review to help others find it. You can also follow us on social media @KindsofCatholic. And remember if you connect with us on Substack, you can comment on episodes and share your thoughts and be part of the dialogue there.  Until the next time.