Saturday, June 20, 2020
Dear Parishioners and Friends of St. Francis Parish,
Yesterday we received word from Bishop Cote about reopening churches for weekend masses. Here is the nuts and bolts of it.
“In coordination with the Archdiocese of Hartford, parishes of the Diocese of Norwich may resume the public celebration of Sunday Mass, including any anticipated Mass(es) on Saturday evening, beginning the weekend of July 4 and 5. Please note: the limitation on gatherings for religious worship, as amended by Executive Order No. 7SS of Governor Lamont, remains in effect. By this order, indoor gatherings are limited to 25% of capacity of the indoor space or a maximum of 100 people, whichever is smaller. The Chancery will notify you if this limit changes.
The Guidelines for the Restoration of Public Worship that were sent to you on May 27 likewise remain in effect. Please use the next two weeks to: (1) review the guidelines with particular attention to their application to Sunday Masses, (2) develop a parish plan for resuming Sunday Mass, including how you will ensure compliance with the stated limitations on worship gatherings, and (3) communicate that plan to your people so that they can know what to expect in your parish(es) as we move forward. If you are not able to implement these guidelines fully by the weekend of July 4 and 5, you should not reopen for Sunday Mass until such time as you are ready. However, if you are unable to resume Sunday Mass at that time, I expect that you will contact my office to state the reason(s) as we will undoubtedly receive inquiries from your parishioners.”
As of now we have two weekend masses in the parish center that we are “live streaming.” We think we have all the bugs worked out, but …. We are looking for a person to take over the live streaming at the 9:00 am English mass. We have the equipment but we need someone to run it during the mass. If you are interested, give me a call ASAP.
We have the church set up with arrows, Xs and bright yellow rope to guide us around and where to sit, etc. I think we will still have mass in the parish center because it costs a ton of money to use the A C in the church. The hall is much less expensive to keep cool. We will probably use the center until fall or if we get a cooler day in July and August. The masses will be on Sunday only, at 9:00 in English and 11:00 in Spanish. I think we can safely get 50 people, maybe 60, into the hall with no problem.
What about music? Good question. Wish I had a good answer. At the Spanish Mass, Ivan and Sonia have been playing. Will e mail our English singers this week.
NB. No matter how we do this, it won’t be the same.
For those of you in the high risk category, I advise you to stay home for now. That also includes me. But it would be difficult to have mass if I stayed in the rectory like the guidelines suggest. In our area there are four of us priests over 70.
To access the “live streaming” go to our new, still in process, website, “stfrancisct.com” and click on the “Live Mass.” It should bring you to the live streaming.
Our new website is far from complete. I noticed this morning that the Parish Bulletins are not up yet and that one of my Random Thoughts is in that category. We’ll get that fixed pronto.
In the very near future you will be getting a phone call, a text and an e mail from the parish suggesting that you sign up for on line giving. This is undoubtedly the future of parish income and I guess we might as well jump in now rather than wait. There is a button to click onto on the front page of our new website, but I don’t have all the particulars at this moment, but will have them next week. I’m sure it is pretty easy, but many of us are “technologically challenged.” Thank God for teenagers to guide us.
Again, our new parish website, which is still a work in progress is stfrancisct.com”