April 6, 2020
Click on video above: Weekly Update - April 6, 2020
We are now Live Streaming

We are now live streaming our Masses. You don't need to miss out during this Holy Week. Of course the Masses are considered 'private' - meaning that only the priest, deacon, cantor, and musicians will be there on premise...but you can be there by joining your presence on line. To see how to connect at the various Holy Week Masses, click here .
A Big Ask: In order for us to access some services that will make our Live Streaming faster, cleaner, better – we need to have a minimum of 100 subscribers. It does not cost you anything, and is as simple as clicking a button. Would you please subscribe to our YouTube Channel now? CLICK HERE to enter our YouTube account.  You can also reach our account by searching for St. Ignatius Catholic Community – Baltimore in YouTube. When on our YouTube page, please click on the red SUBSCRIBE button on the right hand side of the page.
The Virtual Rosary
by Amanda Abuza

Now more than ever we need prayer in our lives. Please consider joining together virtually to pray the rosary together every Sunday morning following Radio Mass. We have set up a video chat every Sunday at 9:45AM until we can gather again together. Please join us after the radio mass by clicking   this link , joining via the WebEx app or the "in browser" option, and click "Join Meeting". There is no need to register. If you have any questions please contact Amanda Heller at alabuza@gmail.com .
The Notion of “Thin Places” 
by Candra Healy

John Mbiti teaches us that what people do is motivated by what they believe, and what they believe springs from what they do and experience. Belief and action, therefore, cannot be separated; they belong to a single whole. For nineteenth-century African American evangelical women preachers, Christianity functioned both as a central belief system and as a source of personal and political empowerment. The Bible offered narratives they could readily apply to their own experiences and a mode of discourse through which they could articulate the despair and aspirations of their people. Religious belief, in particular belief in God’s divine protection, became a source of self-empowerment, an authorization to act in this world.

Nineteenth-century African American evangelical conversion and sanctification experiences present similarities with the fifth century Celtic Christian notion of “thin places.” Those being an action (prayer), a person (Jesus), or a place (chapel) that helps us pass from the secular to the sacred, from the immanent to the transcendent, from the finite to the infinite. READ MORE
Making Your Own Masks

There's one thing you should know before diving into the conversation around masks : The public should not purchase N95 respirators. Health care workers need those when they're treating coronavirus patients . But there is something you can do to meet your health needs, and the needs of your family!

Here is David Meadows (husband of LELC Director, Erica Meadows),who spent all morning last Friday sewing masks, He made three then and now he's making new ones with his old neckties.

So here is a great idea for anyone interested in using some of your 'home time' –
a template and tutorial on how to sew a face mask. This the simplest, easiest and useful mask tutorial. No cutting or sewing is required. (Yes, it's true!)  Click here to learn about it!
COVID-19 Situation Report
by Bill McCarthy

As of April 3, 2020: In our third full week of adjusted service due to COVID-19, we saw dramatic increases in our numbers, coinciding with skyrocketing unemployment rates. This week, we served over 28,000 meals; held 230 case management meetings; and offered close to 5,400 counseling sessions.

Highlights include: Esperanza’s Health Clinic has launched a poly-lingual COVID-19 medical hotline, in partnership with Johns Hopkins, to ensure immediate medical attention can be given to the immigrant community. In its first week, Esperanza was able to refer six people for COVID-19 testing, four of whom received positive results. The site is still in beta-test mode, and going more public later this month. Legal services are still being provided without interruption by Esperanza; 141 cases were assisted this week. READ MORE
A Video Interlude For Holy Week 2020
Editor's Note:
  As we all go through this 2020 Holy Week in the "stay at home" mode, I've searched for something meaningful for this issue of Parish: 'the thought' in order to commemorate the Passion week of Christ, and the culmination of his Easter resurrection. The truth is, for all of our fears and uncertainty, God is still God, and we are currently not unlike his 'locked away' disciples. We too are not sure of what the future holds. And for that reason I present the following three videos to you with some of my observations and thoughts.

May Jesus' grace and peace be with you during this time.
Director of Communications
Our First Presentation

The Sabbath on the week that Jesus was crucified was a horrible time for his followers. They too were greatly shaken, staying indoors, unable to go out until the end of the Sabbath mandate.

As the sun sets on another strange week here in 2020, the Schonmans and their family from Chicago decided to share their personalized version of “The Sabbath Prayer.” Pretty ‘on target’ for Holy Week this year. They changed the words to convey a parent's wishes and hopes for our sons and daughters. No matter your faith or your beliefs, we can all agree we hope our children feel safe and loved in this world.
Our Second Presentation

Of course Easter DID come. The horrible nightmare the believers were going through DID come to an end. If you remember, the knowledge that their dark night of despair was now over slowly trickled through the community of faith. It took those who were devastated quite some time to catch up with the reality of what the 'resurrection life' of Christ meant—and that life would be wonderfully different going forward. Their current pain blinded them to the new reality. But emerging from death into the newness that followed would ultimately open up a new dimension in mankind's relationship with God, and would travel to the ends of the earth. Truly joyful news on the other side of sorrow — which is the paradox of being in Christ. We will all experience joys and sorrows as we move through life (as his disciples continued to experience) — but "Christ has opened a new and living way for us to have access to God! Now we need to have boldness through the blood of Jesus to come forward to the throne of grace" ( Heb. 4:14-16). Access to His presence is the salve for the difficulties in this life.

And so we come to the second video, which I dearly love. It is “Ode to Joy," which is best known for its use by Ludwig van Beethoven in the final (fourth) movement of his Ninth Symphony, completed in 1824. But here is why it is special to me as we come to the joyous Easter Celebration of 2020.

Being in "stay at home mode" as we all are, the Rotterdam Philharmonic teamed up with a Dutch healthcare provider to film “Ode to Joy" with all the musicians playing their parts by video from their homes—and if that was not enough, they then added over 100 vocalists to the mix. Don't know about you, but seeing what can be created even when being 'locked away' is pretty uplifting and hopeful.
Our Third Presentation

This song always moistens my eyes. I shared it with you in Parish: 'the thought' a few years ago. It is a song I first heard on April 22, 1973. It was Easter Morning and I was at a chilly sunrise service on a cliff that overlooked my hometown of Spokane, WA. Three months earlier I had committed my life to following Jesus. The following song reduces me back to the simplicity of when I first responded to his call to "Follow Me." My life has been forever changed, and this Easter of 2020 I once again hear: "Because He lives, I can face tomorrow."
A Wee Bit of Coronavirus Spiritual Foolishness
Worship, Offerings and Prayer
MASS MUSIC   
Attached is the listing for the music selections at next Sunday's 10:30 Mass.
No listings until the
10:30 Mass resumes.
POOR BOX 
This weekend's Poor Box support goes to support the Catholic Charities Covid-19
Emergency Assistance Fund
PRAY FOR THE SICK
A list of those who have been added to our
weekly prayer list.

In the Media
Common Sense Isn't Enough
Can the pandemic cure us of bad habits of mind?

by Roberto J De La Noval 

As the coronavirus pandemic spreads throughout the globe, Americans are doing their best to "flatten the curve" by practicing social distancing.

This is the advice of the world's scientists, who are tracking this disease that has already cost so many lives.

But in the midst of this collective push to secure compliance with necessary safety measures, a number of people still refuse to take the threat seriously.

We now know, for example, that coronavirus can incubate in the body for several days without symptoms, yet you may still hear from some that, as long as no one is feeling sick, public gatherings are OK.

This only quickens the contagion, as apparently healthy people unwittingly function as vectors for a virus that will likely find its way to someone more susceptible to the disease.

Mandatory lockdowns nationwide will soon make these minor rebellions irrelevant. READ MORE