March 26, 2020
Greetings Holy People:
As you are well aware by now things continue to change and develop in this covid-19 environment. I want to update you on the most recent developments. This is a lengthy update as we have a lot to report.
·
First a request:
you are getting this email because you are on-line. We know that we have many parishioners who are not on-line. Most (although not all) of them are our older parishioners. I have a vision of each one of them receiving a call from their parish family to let them know we are here for them and to otherwise check up on them. Those calls have begun
. However, we are still in need of people to help make those calls
. If you would like to assist in making those phone calls, please email Marlene Stammerman at
mstammerman@stjohnpaulparish.org
and she will coordinate this effort.
o
Archbishop Thompson has mandated that our Churches be closed through Holy Week and including Easter Sunday
. So it looks like this will be a “virtual” Holy Week. Several things happen as a result of this.
o
Blessed Palms will be distributed when we return to Church. There is no way to get them to you prior to that.
o
Our RCIA candidates, normally received into the Church on Holy Saturday Night, will be received into the Church at a later date. Right now we are hoping for this to be Pentecost Sunday but it is dependent on their schedule as well as when we get the 'all clear' to worship again in our Churches.
Please pray for them!
o
We will have televised Holy Week Services, Easter Vigil Mass, as well as a televised Easter Sunday Morning Mass. More details will be coming regarding all of that as well as ways you can help make them special.
o
With regard to the
Anointing of the Sick
, the Archbishop has mandated that it be made available only when someone is in imminent danger of death and has not been anointed in the last three months. If someone in your family is in such a situation, please call me on my cell phone (502) 553-3770.
o
There will not be an opportunity for the
Sacrament of Penance and Reconciliation
at this time. At this time priests and penitents are reminded of the Church’s teaching in these cases. When a person finds themselves in the painful impossibility of receiving sacramental absolution because they can’t connect with confession, it should be remembered that perfect contrition, (1) flowing from their love of God, (2) expressed by a sincere request for forgiveness (like praying the act of contrition) and (3) with the intentional to go to sacramental confession as soon as it is offered, obtains forgiveness of sins, even mortal ones (cf. CCC, no. 1452).”
Keeping Our Teens Connected
.
o
We are launching a virtual gathering on Sunday Nights at 5:00pm for the teens in our parish. At that time, we will be part of a Global Life Night with Lifeteen! This Sunday's theme is "Anchored - Holding to Hope". This 30-minute gathering will feature music, prayer and speakers sharing their thoughts! If you want to join in, here's how: go to the St JPII website's home page - click on Discipleship - Youth - Sunday Nights. In there you will find the link to the Global Life Night. There are two choices after being a part of the Life Night. A Parents Page is located there too and it has some discussion questions you can share with your teens (and younger really).
o
A second option is for High School youth to be a part of a Zoom call to process the Life Night and talk a little bit about hope. Zoom will be through an email invite - so if you want to participate be sure to email Marlene at mstammerman@stjohnpaulparish.org so she can send you to invitation to be on the Zoom call!
If this works - we plan on doing this on Sunday nights for the next bit of time... any questions feel free to call Marlene at 317-989-1795.
JPII School
As you are probably aware, our
JPII School
family is on spring break this week and will begin E-Learning next week. For the last several years Karen Haas, our school principal, and our school faculty have been attending workshops and in-service days studying the best ways to utilize E-Learning. The idea was to utilize this for snow days, but it is also good for this type of environment as well.
I will be posting inspirational (I hope) and informational
posts on my blog
. You can access my blog by going to
www.alwaysonthejourney.blogspot.com
There you can read my post and hopefully share some comments of your own. Another way to be Church during this lockdown time.
I invite you to check out our parish webpage
. Kristina Seipel is doing a fantastic job of keeping it up-to-date with ways to help your family during this shelter-in-place time. The homepage contains the latest information, a link to all of our virtual worship opportunities (this includes a holy hour adoration video for you to just spend some time sitting with the Lord), and a section called Living Our Faith at Home. There are many things you can do as a family or as individuals at this time.
We will continue to livestream our daily Masses
(the next one is tomorrow at noon). The last two days we have had over 250 people “attend” our daily Mass. There are directions on how to access the livestream on the parish website. Join us tomorrow.
Finally, we hope to send these updates every other day and hope to have them posted around noon.
God bless you all.
Love,
Fr. Tom
