| Altar Servers - Guild of St. Hugh Altar Servers |
| There are just over 30 servers ranging in age from 9
to 60 and they cover all the Sunday masses. In addition,
they serve at the main Church Festivals, Diocesan events,
and have a lot of demands made on their time. They wear
white albs and gold coloured girdles. A number of young
men over the past twenty years have applied for training
for the priesthood illustrating the closeness between
serving and vocations. The Cathedral needs good
ceremonial and it has been fortunate in the calibre of
its servers who are well able to supply this. The
Cathedral also has its own guild for servers. In 1984, Kieran Flanagan and Fr. Kevin Lecky were asked by Mgr. Crispian Hollis (now Bishop of Portsmouth) to set up a servers' guild for Clifton Cathedral. At Bishop Hollis's request, the guild was named after St. Hugh of Lincoln. Hugh of Lincoln (1140-1200 ) is a Diocesan Saint, whose Feast Day falls on the 19th November. Custom is for the mass for servers to be held on the Sunday after his Feast Day. A Carthusian, Hugh of Lincoln was Abbot of the priory of Witham, near Frome in Somerset. Although duties took him away, to be Bishop of Lincoln, his heart was very much in Somerset. He was canonised in 1220. His tomb at Lincoln was second only to that of St. Thomas of Canterbury as a place of popular devotion, until spoiled by Henry VIII. The altar server's medal is made of bronze and is that used in many of parts of Germany. Like the shape of the Cathedral, it is hexagonal. The cord is Burgundy, reflecting the birthplace of Hugh of Lincoln. On the front of the medal is the boy presenting the loaves and fishes to Our Lord and on the reverse is the Holy Spirit descending at Pentecost. There is not a standard rite in the Church for commissioning servers. The rite used was compiled by Kieran Flanagan and Fr Lecky and was drawn from manuals, in 1984, for altar servers in France and Germany. |