Letter to the Parish - 17 March 2021
/17 March 2021
Feast of St. Patrick
Dear Parishioners,
It was March 17, 2020, when the COVID pandemic resulted in the closure of our churches for public Masses. By God’s grace, by noting what was developing across our country at that time, and with a few parishioners skilled at altar building and audio/video/digital technology, St. Monica parish was ready to immediately and seamlessly move outdoors to provide a way for the faithful to attend Holy Mass, even if not indoors as normal. We maintained the availability of confessions. Thanks to our generous adorers we were able to maintain our dedication to 24/7 worship of Jesus present in the Blessed Sacrament. Thanks to our Family Formation program parents were more prepared and able as the first evangelizers of children to continue and maintain children’s faith formation at home, the domestic Church. And, thanks to your sacrificial giving we have been able to pay our bills even when we were uncertain of the negative impact on Sunday collections caused by closure. I, along with my assistant priests, our deacons, and the parish staff are grateful for your continued presence, your support, and generosity in this unusual time we have all been enduring together.
We are seeing signs of a relaxation of COVID procedures all around us. Yes, there is conflicting advice about this, just as there has been conflicting advice from public health professionals all along. The “moving target” that has been the professional advice about COVID reinforces for me that each and every one of us must exercise personal freedom and responsibility in our precautions. I have tried to communicate what our leaders are requiring or asking of us. At the same time, I have determined that it is not my role or desire to police such matters. Thus, at St. Monica we have tried to foster a spirit of personal responsibility. We have not avoided all disagreements or conflicts to be sure, but all in all I think our community has appreciated that church still feels welcoming and not like a heavily controlled oppressive environment. I am grateful to God that in all of this we have no evidence that church gatherings have been a source of spread of the virus. The Archbishop has recently relaxed some precautions. I am noting more and more that most of you have determined you are finished with still more of the precautions, even if not officially relaxed; I do not blame you. However, we need to be aware of the varying concerns and risk factors of other parishioners who may prefer to observe greater precautions.
Thus, I want to communicate to you that I foresee our parish removing still more of the COVID procedures in the coming weeks. Hymnals have returned to the pews. I do not know when the Archbishop will rescind his mask mandate. I anticipate opening all pews in the church and asking you to simply be respectful of others in keeping some appropriate social distance. Please respect the distance and masking that some parishioners may prefer to maintain. Once we open all pews, we will need to follow a new procedure for distributing Holy Communion since we have been making use of closed pews to come to you. At such time when pews are opened I plan to keep empty only the first pews of each of the four main seating sections. At Holy Communion, those receiving Holy Communion will leave their pew and come down the aisle, as in a normal (pre-COVID) Communion procession, and enter the first pew of their section, kneeling at the kneeler and waiting for the cleric to distribute Holy Communion. Upon receiving, communicants will stand and exit the pew from the opposite end they entered, returning to their original pew to continue kneeling in silent prayer of thanksgiving for the Lord’s total gift of himself in the Holy Eucharist. This is the method we have been using at daily Mass for many months now. You are invited to attend daily Mass if you would like to see that process in person. I know many of you appreciate kneeling for Holy Communion and the built-in sign of reverence kneeling affords. Using the first pews of each section as a sanctuary or communion rail will be a return to more normal movement at Holy Communion for you and will still permit a way to kneel for reception. This should serve as a measure that might one day lead to constructing a proper sanctuary/communion rail.
Finally, under COVID procedures the maximum capacity for seating, using the chapel and all overflow areas, amounts to around 450 people. Only in the last three weeks have we been consistently reaching at or near that maximum capacity at the 10:00 am Mass. Our other Masses have more than enough available seating capacity. However, the 10:00 am being the “High Mass,” I anticipate increased attendance at that Mass. Opening the closed pews will help accommodate anticipated growth. As I communicated in May 2020 upon re-opening for public Masses, actual attendance will determine how many Masses the parish needs. Thus, I will be watching and evaluating the addition of another Mass into our schedule as warranted by the data. In the coming weeks after Easter Sunday I also foresee discontinuing the livestreaming of Mass in favor of promoting a return to in-person Mass attendance. While there will always be some parishioners who are temporarily or permanently homebound, and while seeing one’s own parish livestream has merits, the reality is that other Catholic media entities have far more resources to provide professional broadcasts of Mass for those who have a legitimate homebound need.
While I think our parish has weathered this past year relatively well, still for myself I notice a type of psychological exhaustion with all we have endured. Thus, I have appreciated more than you can know the many kind notes so many of you have sent or the time many of you have taken to share with me your gratitude for my leadership over these months. Just being able to gather more freely with you has a new rich value for me. A good example of that is how excited I am to be able to have a Friday fish fry and to walk into a hall seeing so many of you again. Our most important gathering and parish work is, of course, the worship we give God in the Holy Mass and the grace and power we receive from that for mission as disciples. Thus, I encourage you all to actively invite back to confession and Mass attendance our fellow brothers and sisters who may have fallen away or who have simply been keeping a distance out of caution these past months. And more than that, this odd year may just have prepared us to have new impulse for the much discussed new evangelization, to share our faith and to invite the fallen away and non-Catholics to deeper union with Christ’s Church!
May God bless our parish with renewed vigor in practicing our precious Catholic faith and sharing it with others!
Sincerely in Christ,
Rev. Stephen V. Hamilton
Pastor