This past Ash Wednesday, 2021:
We returned to public Masses a year ago on Pentecost Sunday with every other pew closed, social distancing of six feet and masks highly encouraged but not mandated. Richmond Hill’s local government never mandated mask usage although businesses could and did. Georgia had no mask mandate but municipalities could have them.
From last Pentecost to today, we have sung the Mass as always. We distributed Holy Communion both on tongue and hand, kneeling or standing and without barriers and at the normal time.
A month ago we returned the hymnals to the pews and we began again to pass the offertory basket for the collection.
Next Sunday, Pentecost Sunday, all pews will be open and those who are not groupings are encouraged to space three feet apart.
WHAT ABOUT YOUR DIOCESE AND PARISH?
12 comments:
We have a few still wearing masks. We are practically back to normal although we are not planning our usual group activities. Our governor has proclaimed 2 June as Liberation Day and has instituted a Million Dollar lottery.
Pretty much everything returns to normal Sun 23rd. If you want to wear a mask, then wear one. Parishes with a lot of folk still wanting masks and social distancing cannot designate more than 30% of seating for such, the rest will be open seating. Hymnals and sign of peace and basket passing returns, along with fonts, BUT holding hands during the Lord's Prayer still forbidden as not part of the Roman Rite.
Sadly, the local parish here is still fully “incardinated” in the Draconian Usage of the Chinese-Fauci Community Church. Teams of “reception ministers” (garbed in rather Maoist-looking matching outfits) standing on the church plaza checking people’s “reservations”, demanding contact tracing information/temp checks/full masking, two gloved escorts to/from seating, forced leaving after communion, etc. But they keep saying, “Don’t stay away! We’d love to see you”!
Gaudete in Domino Semper!
Meant to add as for the local restoration of all functions listed above, that this diocese was among the very last to shut down, if not the very last, a moot point as they ALL collapsed in swift succession this past year, and resumed Masses before Pentecost on May 18. Singing was restored around Thanksgiving, at the holiday surge in cases which ran two weeks into January. Masks were always recommended but not required if you could live with the evil eyes cast upon those who so opted.
BUT, as said above, now back to normal, including crowded lines and coffee and donuts.
As for the "anxiety disorders" jab, what do you expect when you post a notice at door disowning liability for illness/death traceable to attending Mass, tell people they really ought to wear an ineffective mask because it is so dangerous, enforce distance between people, yank fonts, hymnals, baskets, forbid physical contact, forbid even singing, etc etc etc.? Beat a dog and it will develop a flinch.
Anxiety disorders@1:49 pm, I fully agree and the culprit is Science without reason. Just as faith and reason must walk hand-in-hand so too science and reason.
So much touted as science has been theory but forced on us in the most dogmatic scientific way. And think of your homemade masks. No on tested the effectiveness of these with the small microbes of Covid-19. It probably helped you with large particles of pollution, a fart, incense, etc, but Covid-19–not on your life!
"Ineffective masks."? Balderdash.
"The flu all but disappeared amid the Covid-19 pandemic, thanks in large part to social distancing measures aimed at reducing the coronavirus's spread."
"According to CDC, the hospitalization rate for the 2020-21 flu season in America was just 0.7 per 100,000 people—the lowest since the agency started tracking flu data in 2005. In fact, over the course of the last flu season, there was just one pediatric flu death—compared to 196 in the 2019-20 flu season."
Our restrictive measures worked, no thanks to the boneheads who 1) denied the pandemic, 2) scoffed at the precautions, and 3) continue to think the election was stolen from Trump.
"Small microbes of Covid 19"? Your ignorance is amazing.
Viruses like the novel coronavirus don't travel independently from person to person. They are contained in the droplets of sputum and phlegm. These droplets ARE caught by masks. That's why the inside of your mask gets damp after wearing it for a while. The virus, if you exhale it or sneeze it or cought it stays in the mask.
"Coughs and sneezes create respiratory droplets of variable size that spread respiratory viral infections." (Coughs and Sneezes: Their Role in Transmission of Respiratory Viral Infections, Including SARS-CoV-2. American Journal of Respiratory Critical Medical Care, 1 sept 2020)
"No on tested the effectiveness of these..." Again, amazing ignorance.
Google "Cloth Mask Tests" and you WILL find studies reported on by the CDC, Nature Magazine, the National Library of Medicine, the British Medical Journal, Science Magazine, North Carolina State University, University of California Davis, etc.
Why do you make such absurd claims when the facts are just a Google away?
Cloth masks WERE tested by OSHA and the FDA and were found woefully inadequate and why they were forbidden in IDLH (Immediately Dangerous to Life and Health) HAZMAT/Biohazard environments. They were recommended only for the illusion of help to a helpless population, both to prevent panic and to push for reopening to prevent economic collapse.
This does not negate that it was an exceptionally dangerous time, and still is to a lesser degree, especially for the folk who cannot take the vaccine, or will not due to moral concerns, and those with other health problems. The virus may not be spreading as wildfire in many areas, but still is in others, and it most definitely has not gone away, and yet, near all precautions are now being thrown in the dumpster as if it a thing of the past.
In short, the reaponse has been psychotic, and still is. Such as reinstituting singing, right at peak infection rates. So, of course people are still concerned as to attending Mass, and it is no disorder.
Anon317, you neglect the study which showed covid is not exhaled but only came out WHEN the sampled sick person coughed or sneezed. And that the masks which were shown effective in stopping it were certified surgical grade masks which also were sealed around edges by the collecting mask. You also ignore all previous true science which has proven plain cloth masks are totally inadequate for protection from biohazards, which is why our Army does not issue cloth masks for biological warfare. AND why just over a year ago, wearing a cloth mask in a hazardous environment would have had your company fined and shut down and you fired.
COVID restrictions in England are mandated by central government. Public worship is subject to the one-metre-plus rule (with face coverings) so capacity is reduced by at least two thirds. The government's plan is to remove all restrictions on 21 June but people will still be asked to exercise caution when making their own risk assessments. I suspect that a few will be reluctant to part with their masks, and I don't think the congregational sign of peace will return. Should anyone proffer his or her hand the victim might want to refuse on prudential grounds.
Passing the collection plate around is no longer necessary, since many people have switched to on-line donations and there is a facility at the back of the church to tap a card (£5 or multiples thereof) or deposit coins.
While our bishop published recommended COVID precautions he left it up to each parish priest to decide what was best for the parish. In my parish masks were never mandated and I never wore one to Mass nor did anyone else at the TLM. Maybe 1/3 of people attending the Novus Ordo Mass wore masks. We stopped social distancing about 4 months ago and stopped Mass reservations on Easter Sunday. Hymnals were returned to the pews shortly after Christmas. Everyone at either form of Mass receives Communion on the tongue kneeling at the altar rail.
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