Grandad Altar Server receives special award on St Stephen's Day

l-r: Andrew, Marc and Alexander Johnson

St Stephen's Day is traditionally a day when altar servers get special attention.

This year was no exception for the Johnson family of Colchester's Church of St James the Less and St Helena when Mgr Christopher Brooks presented Andrew Johnson with a Gold Medal from the Archconfraternity of the Guild of St Stephen, in recognition of his fifty years as an altar server.

Catenian Andrew Johnson tells his story: "I was admitted to the Guild in 1967 after my First Holy Communion in the parish of St Albans Macclesfield. We later moved to Ashton under Lyne and the opportunity to serve was limited. Upon moving to the parish of St Pauls Hyde it was recognised that I had a good singing voice and with the priest's blessing the choirmistress recruited me to the choir. I served Our Lord in this role which the Guild handbook recognised as the next role to serving and I continued serving at Low Masses. This continued until I we moved to St Benedict's in Handforth. Then came University and several career moves some parishes were receptive to people moving in but gaps occurred in serving even though I offered myself as available. When we moved to Halstead Fr Chris Maher SCA asked myself and my sons George and Alexander to serve. We accepted and eventually I took over as MC.

"As a family we then moved to Colchester and I eventually took over the serving team as parish MC in 2005/6. There George and Alex received their 10 year Silver Medals.

"We have served as a family since 1997 and were joined by my grandson Marc in 2014 a year before his First Communion.

Alexander remains a regular server and is now a member of Colchester Catenian circle, George serves when asked and is currently Provincial Director of the Knights of St Columba for the East of England (Brentwood and East Anglia dioceses). I have been Circle President and currently Circle Secretary. I am also the Confirmation lead and a Steward of the Gospel."

LINKS

Guild of St Stephen - https://guildofststephen.org
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