Mass of Thanksgiving for Altar Servers

Altar servers and their families are invited to join this year's Annual Mass of Thanksgiving for the Guild of St Stephen.

If you would like to attend please contact the Vocations Office: [email protected]

At last year's Mass (2025) over 320 altar servers of all ages gathered at St Chad’s Cathedral. It is thought to be the largest attendance at the yearly
celebration for the Guild.

The Guild of St Stephen is an international organisation of altar servers, founded in England in 1904 by Fr Hamilton McDonald. The Guild has spread and developed since then, and is active in many parishes in the Archdiocese of Birmingham.

Altar servers take St Stephen - one of the first seven deacons chosen to assist the apostles in service (Acts 6) and the first martyr of the Church - as their patron.

The objectives of the Guild:

• To encourage, positively and practically, the highest standards of serving at the Church's liturgy and so contribute to the whole community's participation in a more fruitful worship of God.
• To provide altar servers with a greater understanding of what they are doing so that they may serve with increasing reverence and prayerfulness and thereby be led to a deepening response to their vocation in life.
• To unite servers of different parishes and dioceses for their mutual support and encouragement.

The Guild of St Stephen in the Archdiocese of Birmingham is administered by the Diocesan Vocations Office

The Director of the Guild is Fr Craig Szmidt and the administrator is Kathryn Bayliss.

Please contact the Vocations Office if you will be attending this year's Mass: [email protected]

Diocesan Vocations Office website

Guild News - annual newsletter for altar servers

Photograph taken at the 2025 Mass