Sacred Heart Parish has over 80 altar servers, including some Academy students who are not parishioners and serve only during the school year. The altar servers are an integral part of the liturgical life of Sacred Heart Parish. In addition to fulfilling the physical task of assisting the priest in the reverent celebration of the Mass, our servers perform an even more important spiritual function: lifting the minds and souls of the congregation towards Heaven. We believe that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a foretaste of Heaven, where the Blessed Trinity is worshipped eternally by all the angels and saints. By their reverent actions at the altar, servers reflect, in an imperfect-yet-real way, the order and beauty of the Heavenly Liturgy.  It is hard to imagine a more important duty that a young person can execute in this life.

Young men become eligible to serve at Mass once they reach 10 years of age. The initial training takes about 7-½ hours to complete, takes place over the course of five Saturdays, and covers both serving fundamentals and the positions of boat boy and torch bearer. Once servers master the roles in which they’ve been trained and have displayed the requisite maturity, they will be invited to learn additional positions. It normally takes four or more years for a server to be trained in each serving position.

If you would like to know more about serving, please join the Altar Servers Flocknote Group.