As I sit and wait, thousands of thoughts are running through my mind. Where is everyone? What if I have to do this all by myself? Will I remember my cues? That was how I felt on my first day of altar ...

As soon as she was old enough, third-grader Ellen Clarke joined the first wave of girl altar servers, helping break up a club reserved for Roman Catholic boys for centuries. Seven years later, the ...

Altar servers are much more than “simple helpers of the parish priest,” John Paul II Aug. 1 at his 1,000th general audience. “Above all, you are servers of Jesus Christ, of the eternal High Priest,” ...

They encouraged the participants to serve with humility, discipline, and reverence, and to grow not only in skill but also in faith and character. Besides the talks, the servers actively participated ...

When I signed up last year to be an altar server at Our Lady of Good Counsel Church in Vienna, it was easy. But two years ago, that would have been impossible for any girl. One day when I was 6 years ...

TOLEDO, Ohio — For 12-year-old Greg Metcalf, being an altar server is “a guy thing.” And he and his fellow servers at St. Joseph Parish here want to keep it that way. Although other parishes in the ...

to her friends — is serving on the altar at St. Mary’s Church of the Immaculate Conception in Wilkes-Barre. Her reasons for becoming an acolyte are simple. “I feel safe here,” the Wilkes-Barre ...

When I was a young girl attending Mass with my family at St. Mary's Catholic Church in the 1960s and '70s, I don't ever remember wanting to be an altar server. So the fact that I ended up becoming one ...

Altar servers take part in a Good Friday service at a church in Gora Kalwaria, Poland, in this April 10, 2020, file photo. Being an altar server should be a “profession of faith” to the entire parish ...

Pope Francis greets altar servers during his general audience in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican April 25. (CNS photo/Paul Haring) FATIMA, Portugal (CNS) — Being an altar server should be a ...

Kyra Pence receives her medallion from Bishop Richard Malone during the 48th annual Catholic Bishop’s Altar Server awards recently at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Buffalo. Submitted photo BUFFALO — Kyra ...

Sri Lankan Cardinal Malcolm Ranjith has mandated that girls are not permitted to serve as altar servers in parishes within the Archdiocese of Colombo. “No girls should be invited to serve at the altar ...