It has been, and continues to be, a whirlwind month, but in a good way. We finished our First Communions this past weekend and we are less than a week away from our Confirmation celebration. Please pray for all of those receiving Sacraments of Initiation this year, as well as their families.
You will experience, this week, a few changes at our weekend Masses. The most significant is the moving of the reception of the Eucharist back to its normal place in the context of the Mass, instead of at dismissal. The two main reasons this has not happened earlier were our need to have an orderly dismissal from the pews at the end of Mass, as well as time constraints. With the sanitizing and seating protocols we have been following, we needed to make sure the Mass was over and the Church was cleared quickly so that we could prepare for and seat the next Mass. While some of those concerns are still present, we are changing some of our protocols regarding pew disinfecting, due to the CDC’s reporting of surface transmission of COVID-19 as low risk. We will continue to use the spray disinfectants in the Church, but we will reduce how often we use them. We, of course, encourage you to continue to practice good hand hygiene (washing and sanitizing) as that seems to be more important in protecting ourselves and one another, than anything the Church can do.
We will still have need of an orderly departure at the end of Mass, and we ask for your cooperation with the ushers when doing so: this need will be announced during Masses as well. This change will allow us to keep some of the pews open on a regular basis for daily private prayer in the Church, instead of using the chairs in the aisle. This is another step towards normalcy as we restore some of the integrity to the order of our Eucharistic liturgies. It is, however, still an incremental step: due to the guidelines we must follow, we still require the use of masks/face coverings when in any of our public buildings, and until social distancing guidelines are relaxed, we will continue our seating procedures for weekend Masses. The chapel must still remain closed for private prayer and daily Masses at this time. I look forward to being able to change those protocols as well, but we are not there quite yet. Thank you for your cooperation and patience, and please join me in thanking those who have, selflessly, continued to help us for a year now, to make sure we have safe access to our Church for the Sacraments.
There are a number of exciting announcements coming now and in the future as well: for the Church, for prayer, for our Academy, and possibly even for a one-time replacement to our carnival. We also, sadly, continue to plan for our farewells to Fr. Al and Fr. Marcin, but we think we will be able to do that in a way that is both safe and healthy, but also special and fun for us and for them. God bless you.