Hello, my beautiful Holy Family! We’ve got lots of important things to cover, so I’ll jump right in.
The first thing is to ask for your help. I’m realizing more and more that a lot of people do not read the bulletin and/or listen to announcements. If you could, please help spread the word about the updates we have been providing in the bulletin and announcements. This would help a lot.
I have to tell you, last Sunday absolutely blew me away…I simply could not believe how many people stayed after the 5:30 PM Mass and helped move us down to the hall. So many of you threw in so generously that we were done way before I ever thought we would be. What a blessing: Thank you!
So the first few Masses in the hall are prayed and we’ve learned a few things and received some great questions. I’d like to get after them now.
Why isn’t the tabernacle in the large hall? Why not have it in the place where we will pray our weekend Masses? A couple reasons, the primary being that we do not want to move the tabernacle from place to place during this time of transition. The large hall where we celebrate our weekend Masses is used for a lot of things during the week and setting up and taking down the hall every Friday and Monday is going to take a lot of effort…a lot. Moving the tabernacle every week is not a good thing for us to do physically or spiritually.
By setting aside the small hall as our designated sacred area during this time of transition means we can keep the Tabernacle in one spot and still use our large hall in the many, many ways we use it during the week.
I want to kneel at the consecration during Mass as we do in a regular Church. Can I bring a kneeler pad and kneel on the floor during Mass? I totally get that; kneeling is the way we show reverence and not being able to kneel during the consecration is tough on us spiritually. In terms of bringing a pad, yes, of course you can bring it. I’ll just ask you to make sure that you take it with you when you go and come each week.
Key ideas to remember:
As a community, we want things to go well and it is important that things do go well as much as we are able. With that, we need to remember that the next year is going to involve a lot of sacrifice for us. We can’t make everything perfect. Praying Mass in a hall means that we are going to have to sacrifice in a lot of different ways and I pray we resist the temptation to treat each discomfort or irritant as a problem to be solved: sometimes, there is great grace in simply enduring these little discomforts with dignity and prayer.
We are going to find holes in our coverage over the next few months, but we’ll figure it all out and, in the meantime, I pray we find joy in this transition.
I’ve been absolutely amazed at how bright our hall is, how nice it looks and how ridiculously clear the sound is: we are blessed!
Let’s be of great joy and good cheer during this time and embrace the goofiness of it all with a holy anticipation of the coming day when we will pray Mass in our beautiful new Church, courtesy of God’s grace and your generous hearts.
I need to end this with a tearful thank you. I don’t know how to express my thanks to whomever it is that gave me a Chalice. I have no idea how you found out I haven’t had my own chalice for years and I don’t know what compelled you to be so generous and kind…heck, I don’t even know who you are! What I do know is that I am grateful beyond what I can express here. With all my heart, thank you. I will pray that God bless you at my first Mass with that chalice this weekend.
I love you all and thank God He lets me be your priest.
Fjk
