With one weekend down, we are heading quickly into a second. It is amazing how we do this every seven days!
Anyway. Lessons learned from last weekend:
- Not requiring reservations went well and saved everyone, especially those not very internet-capable, from a rather onerous step.
- St. Anthony appears to be able to seat perhaps just a little more than 100 while maintaining social distance; St. Dominic probably seats a little less than 150 while maintaining social distance.
- People want to work together and practice reasonable precautions, but given a chance, the vast majority prefer to set aside face masks when able (when seated at distance from others). The small percentage who are unnerved or annoyed by this need to be aware of this trend.
- Ushers need to be in place upto 30 minutes before Mass starts.
- 8am Mass at St. Anthony was pretty much at capacity (100). 6:30pm Mass was near capacity (80). 10:30am Mass was well-attended (70). 4;00pm Mass, relatively speaking, had lots of room (40).
- I need to put a message on the phone system to make sure everyone is aware that, yes, we are having Mass, and that we are using both locations.
- Daily Mass is a valid and good option for those who are still wary of large crowds. We offer daily Mass at 8am M-F at St. Anthony Church.
- We have plenty of Pray Together Missals to be able to send them home with people at this time. Our musicians do well by selecting from music selections in that book.
S0, we are going to head into this weekend and not change our schedule or locations. Perhaps use of the St. Dominic site will not be feasible as the summer drags on because of the air conditioning situation and the smaller-than-predicted estimated seating situation, but for now, in order to minimize confusion and to keep consistent for as long as we can, we will maintain the schedule as we did last weekend:
- Saturday, 4:00 pm: St. Dominic (Fr. Don Blickhan)
- Saturday, 6:30pm: St. Anthony (Fr. Tom Donovan)
- Sunday, 8:00am: St. Anthony (Fr. Tom Donovan)
- Sunday, 10:30am: St. Dominic (Fr. Don Blickhan)
In order to regulate the crowds, I ask you, if you went to Mass last weekend, to try to attend the same Mass this coming weekend… that’s not an order or a requirement, but just a practical request to help us be able to predict which Masses might have the additional capacity for those who might be returning for the first time this week. If you are returning for the first time this week, consider attending at 4pm on Saturday at St. Dominic or at 10:30am on Sunday at St. Dominic… again, just a suggestion. If the time suggestions don’t work for you, come anyway and we’ll do what we can to make sure everyone has a seat. What is most important is to have as many people at Mass as we can handle.
Last weekend was a wonderful restart, and we are going to do even better this week. I thank our parishioners for their patience and their cooperation.