Fourth Sunday in Advent

Dear Parishioners,

    Christmas is fast approaching.  This year it is unclear what we can expect regarding our liturgical celebrations.  We still have the pandemic hanging over our heads. Over the last several months we have had about one third of our regular Mass attendance.  This is understandable since there is a health risk to gather in groups. So far, we have managed to keep people safe. At Christmas we usually have some of the largest numbers of people coming to Mass.  We are trying to be as accommodating as we can.

We will continue to follow protocols.  This means that if you are coming to a Christmas Mass you need to go to our Website and register.  We will take 125 registrations for each Mass. If a Mass is full you are asked to register for another Mass.  When Christmas comes, if a Mass registration is full, we will not allow anyone into Mass that is not registered.  If a Mass does not have 125 registrations, we will allow walk ins until capacity is reached.  If the church has reached capacity, we will politely inform people who come to the door which Masses still have open seating.

There are other options as well.  We will livestream the 4:00p.m. Mass Christmas Eve and the 9:00 a.m. Mass Christmas morning. After 9:00 a.m. Mass we will distribute communion outside, weather permitting, or in church if the weather is bad.

For safety reasons, we do not want to pack people into the church. I feel this would be irresponsible.  We also need to sanitize the church between Masses; this complicates things more.  Our celebrations will be simple this year. We will try to move people in and out of the church in an efficient, but reverent manner.  I thank all of you for your cooperation.  I would love to accommodate everyone who wants to come to Mass, but it is really a matter of looking out for everyone’s health. I would hate to think that we might have a super spreader event because of our Masses.

Blessings,

Fr. Mark