Holy Spirit Church well served
Local
The future is looking bright for the Holy Spirit Church community at Seacombe Gardens with 16 young people actively involved as altar servers each weekend.
Part of the St Ann’s parish, led by Fr Joseph Wales Raja George, the community is “overjoyed” to see so many youngsters keen to serve on the altar.
“It is a sign that we are a really flourishing community and it gives our older parishioners a lot of hope to see the younger generation involved,” Fr Joseph said.
Delia Schmidt is coordinator of the altar servers who range in age from six-year-old Nixxie to 19-year-old Fabian. She said some of the children’s fathers had also been altar servers and the youngsters were now carrying on the tradition.
The multicultural flavour of the community is reflected within the group which comprises children of Indian, Syrian, African and Malaysian ethnicity. Most of the younger children attend the adjacent Stella Maris Parish School.
“Seeing their companions interact with priests and doing something special encourages more children to want to serve,” Delia said.
Shant said the best part of being an altar boy or girl was “serving Father” and Connor said “I like being at the front (of the Mass)”.
Fabian said it was important for an altar server to be organised and confident.
“You have to think ahead because not every Mass is the same, for example at Christmas and Easter there are special jobs that need to be done or there may be a baptism taking place,” he said.
“You need to have experience for each one of them and talk about where things go and what to do before the Mass starts.”
Fr Joseph said the younger children receive instructions about their role prior to Mass to remind them what to do and are rostered on with more experienced servers.
In other St Ann’s news, Archbishop Patrick O’Regan recently opened and blessed new offices in the Holy Spirit Church parish hall after celebrating Sunday morning Mass.
The offices were designed by Deacon Andrew Kirkbride, who is an architect. Fr Joseph thanked the Diocesan property team and other staff who had been a “great help” to the project.
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