OMG! I haven’t posted here in months! And, how those months have changed us all because of the contagion of Covid-19! Who would have thunk it?
Abstaining from one another and fasting from the Holy Eucharist has become part of a new society filled with businesses that closed and will n
ever open again, like the fancy restaurant I saw in Westmont, IL with a big sign announcing “We are permanently closed.” People having leisure to take a walk with their families through the neighborhood. It looks like a good thing for families. But, lets just talk about Sunday church for a moment.
Churches are allowed to be open but with more or less 25% capacity congregations with non-pods sitting six feet from one another with masks hiding their identities and emotions.
The sign reads “Closed Covid 19.” Where are our roads to community now?
No singing. It took years of encouragement to have our people, at first reluctantly but later with some enthusiasm sing at Mass. It was great to hear them sing like Baptists but now it is forbidden because nearly everyone sings when we do sing. So more people, more contamination of the ambient air.
It took us years to get people to share the greeting of peace. Now it is to be omitted. We haven’t even yet considered the sharing of the cup. This is forbidden, now.
We built better and bigger foyers to encourage people to congregate before and after Mass. Now we just encourage them to go home.
You have to receive the Body of Christ in your extended hand. I watched one priest in a “streaming” Mass who stood in front of the altar in his church distributing communion in that way but he also had, at the side aisles, ministers of communion for those who wanted to receive on the tongue. He actually said that if anyone comes to him and wants to receive on the tongue “I will refuse you.”
Alright. Too much to talk about. From this terrible pandemic we will eventually have to pick up the pieces of our society and our church. Rebuilding community has always been a huge task of those who minster to the Mystical Body of Christ. Trusting God and one another, we will get through this.