August 7, 2020
Dear Friends,
Quite a few important updates, as well as a few reminders:
New:
· Livestream at 7:30 a.m. Mass this week. Our videographer is not available Saturday night and so we will livestream the 7:30 a.m. Sunday Mass this Sunday. I will be away this weekend officiating at the wedding of my nephew Jon and his fiancée, Emily. Say a prayer for a long and happy marriage for them. Fr. Bill will be presiding at all the Masses. Due to his age he has asked that someone distribute communion for him. Jesse will coordinate that.
· Archbishop Thompson has extended his dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass until November 1. This dispensation was originally scheduled to end on August 15, but that has now been extended until at least November 1.
· Reopening of St. Joe Hill Chapel for Daily Masses Beginning this upcoming week we will return our Tuesday and Friday Masses to the St. Joe Hill Church. Mass times will remain the same-Tuesdays at 6:30 p.m. and Fridays at Noon. Confessions will be heard before the Friday Mass beginning at 11:00 a.m. in the reconciliation room. A Holy Hour will also be held from 11:00am - 11:30am. Masks are required for confession. The pastoral team and I are looking into the possibility of reopening St. Joe Hill for weekend Masses. We have not counted precisely how many people we could get into that worship space yet. Our fear is that because it is 25% smaller than St. Paul we would have to turn some people away if we got a big crowd for a particular Mass. I will keep you posted on that as it develops.
Please note that the bulletin this weekend (August 9th) indicates the Tuesday (8/11) and Friday (8/14) Masses are at the St. Paul Chapel. As noted above, these will be at the St. Joe Hill Chapel; this decision was made after the bulletin went to the publisher.
· Wednesday Morning Mass is a school children ONLY Mass beginning this Wednesday. Whenever the children are present on Wednesday, we cannot allow any parishioners into that Mass as we simply don’t have enough room to do so. We apologize in advance for the inconvenience. The Mass will be livestreamed though on Facebook.
REPEATS:
· New Indiana Mask Law-Governor Holcomb has issued a new mask mandate that began Monday, July 27, 2020. In order to comply with the law masks will be required to be worn as you enter the church. If you do not have a mask, we have a supply on hand.
· New Confession Times: Beginning August 7, we will be offering different times for the Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation. This is actually a little bit of a return to what we were doing before the pandemic. We will have confessions on Saturday afternoon at the St. Paul Chapel beginning one hour before Mass (currently that will be at 4 p.m.) Confessions will last for one half hour. We will also begin confessions again at 11:00 a.m. on Fridays at the St. Joe Hill Chapel (during the holy hour). Once again that will last for one half hour until 11:30 a.m. We will no longer have confessions on Wednesday and Saturday mornings. Of course, you can always call me and arrange a time for this sacrament.
· Haiti Water Bottles-The Coronavirus’ impact on Haiti has come in the form of a serious food shortage. Our Haiti Committee has committed $1250.00 to Food for the Poor for direct food relief to our sister parish. This gift was a matching gift and so we were able to get twice the amount of food directly to our sister parish. If you still have a water bottle at home, please return it as quickly as possible to help us as we try to help them. Just place your water bottle on any of the tables in the back of church and we will safely gather them from there. Thanks in advance for your help with this.
· Please do not bring food for the food pantry to Church. You can drop it at Speed Memorial Church on Thursday evenings between 5-7 p.m. You can also drop it by the parish office during normal office hours, Monday through Friday from 9am-12pm.
· We are not collecting plastic bottle caps at this time. Please recycle them.
Be safe and continue to pray for the day we can put this pandemic behind us.
Fr. Tom
