Hello, everyone. Welcome to Holy Week!
The bulletin has finally been posted on the webpage. Sorry– I meant to get that out quicker. Each registered household will be receiving a mailing (hopefully, USPS?) tomorrow with a printed copy of the mini-bulletin, minus the “Coming Events” page. It also has more information about services this week and financial support for our parish and school. Here are some of the highlights:
Masses – continue at 9am on YouTube and Facebook for Monday April 6, Tuesday April 7, and Wednesday, April 8.
Holy Hours – continue to be broadcast at 3pm on Monday through Wednesday this week. (Note: on Tuesday we will pre-record the Holy Hour as to be more convenient to our Deacon Candidate Dennis, so he can work later on that day.)
Individual Confessions will be heard each evening at the church from 4-5pm, or until all are heard.
Holy Thursday – Mass of the Lord’s Supper will be live at 5pm over Facebook and YouTube. No Holy Hour is scheduled for Thursday.
Good Friday – The Liturgy of the Passion and Death of the Lord will be live at 5pm. No Holy Hour is scheduled, although we are considering offering an alternative meditation/devotion sometime during the day.
Holy Saturday/Easter Vigil – The Easter Vigil will be held at 8pm. We still have some technical concerns to overcome for this broadcast, but we anticipate being live at 8pm.
Easter Sunday – Easter Sunday Mass will be webcast at 8am live, and when it is over it will be available throughout the day for those who wish to view it. I also have the Easter Sunday Mass for Shut-Ins on KHQA at 10:30am.
Note: our Mass Times are “publication times” and most of the time it is when we webcast the Mass live. I have specified an later time on Sunday (10:30am) in order to give us the lee-way to correct a webcast which has suffered a catastrophic technical glitch or anything like that so we have the time to edit it or re-do it. We will go ahead and release it live whenever it is recorded (for instance, on Easter Sunday we plan to go live at 8am), and if there are no edits or redo’s, it should be available for replay in its entirety shortly after the live broadcast and for replay throughout the day… in any case, by 10:30am at the latest. Sorry for any confusion this causes… this is not an exact science yet…. but we are getting there!
Daily Masses and Holy Hours resume at their usual hours on Monday, April 13 until public Masses are held once again.
I have been a little bit vague and holding back on a Triduum (Thurs-Fri-Sat-Sun) schedule details, hoping that perhaps the Diocese would give us some other options to join together in prayer those days. I am told that the Bishop met with a team of medical professionals to look at “how we can get the sacraments to the people” and that they are looking to implement something as soon as possible. In the meantime, they do not want us doing anything particularly novel unless it is something we (all the parishes and priests and people) can do together. I still have some hope that they might be able to provide some added guidance before Thursday, so I ask you to remain flexible if something more should come down the line, allowing us some other options for these most holy of days. In the meantime, we have a schedule for continuing along with the status quo.
Please continue to pray for God’s protection and deliverance in this season of pandemic. As you know from the news, the disease is in our community and we are vulnerable. Do follow the guidance our civil authority have provided in staying home and out of near-range contact with others. Watch out for your neighbors, particularly the elderly. Do not touch your face, eyes, nose, mouth without cleansing them before and after. Pray for our doctors and nurses and medical personnel who are working long hours. Pray for those whose employment has been negatively impacted by this crisis. Pray for our children working from home on their school work, and their teachers. We stand as the Body of Christ, united in spirit and looking forward to the day when we can re-unite in the assembly of the faithful for Sunday Mass once again.
I also ask you to pray for Deacon Pawel Luczak in these days preceding his priestly ordination, scheduled for May 23. We are expecting to have his First Mass here at St. Anthony on Sunday, May 24. I am going to presume that the ordination is going to take place, even if there are restrictions on the number of people who can be present… after all, the bishop could ordain them in his private chapel and send them out from there all the same, but I just don’t know. Pawel explained to me when he visited last week that chances are his family from Poland will not be able to make the journey at this time and under these circumstances. We will, of course, hope for a time his family can come and celebrate with him. Unless we hear otherwise from the Bishop’s office, we are going to cautiously proceed with the presumption that this celebration will take place and we hope that a large, festive celebration can be had on the weekend of May 23-24.
We have not heard anything about Confirmation or First Communion yet. We are anxiously awaiting guidance from the Diocese of Springfield regarding when these celebrations will resume. No doubt we will not be hearing anything until public Masses resume. — Fr. Tom Donovan