A NOTE FROM FR. VINCE
Hello everybody!
This month is about shot. We all know that it felt more like 91 days rather than 31 days. As you know, Polk/Dallas Counties still have a significant daily infection rate with numerous deaths. With that in mind, Bishop Joensen with the consultation of pastors, said that we won’t be back to weekend masses by June 7. So we will still be taping Sunday mass for a few more weeks. Once we move to the main sanctuary, we will be able to live-stream a Sunday mass. Relatively soon the office here will be putting out guidelines for attendees at mass. With all the social distancing requirements, our guess is there will be a max of only 125 people per mass.
I suppose we all have to go out and buy a thermometer for taking our temperature every day to come to work. If we are waiting for an actual test for all of us, plan on it being a Christmas present. If we are waiting for a vaccine, that could be in a succeeding year. It’s semi-depressing to think that we’ll have to be on ‘high alert’ through the summer, and a lot more of the same in the fall. Economically, if this keeps up for a year, we will be owned by Mexico. The church and our faith, however, are not wanting to dwell just on how bad it is; rather we want to clarify what this means for us. I said last week that those of us in immediate financial crisis must worry about that alone, but sooner or later, we have to discover meaning. And we’re talking meaning for us, our families, our parish, and our country. We might as well throw in our world too. We are not going to look just like we did 3 months ago. We aren’t coming back to that economy for a long time. But I’m not talking about that. I think we need to ask ourselves what we want to happen now. How will we be different? What will our priorities be? Do we want to live differently? But for me at least, I want to discover meaning. And to do that, our faith and experience of God in our lives, has to be worked on. Where are we being led? How does God want to touch our lives?
This Sunday is the Feast of Pentecost and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit. Let’s plan on pushing our way in to that experience, and implore for some of that guidance that the Spirit offers.
