NO NEED TO RESERVE FOR MASS
Mass Schedule
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Saturday Vigil Mass at 5:00 PM
Sunday Mass at 10:00 AM
Please consider supporting our Archdiocese and local parishes, especially this second year that we have been experiencing the effects of the COVID Virus restrictions. It was a tough year last year but many churches continued to survive because of your generous help. Thank you!
Plague Journal 22: Welcome and Safety Together
Last May when it became possible to open up for Masses once again, I was very skeptical about doing so. It wasn’t that I felt we couldn’t do so safely; I was confident that we could. My concern was that the necessary procedures and protocols would detract from that sense of welcome so necessary and desirable at a Christian worship service. The early Masses were indeed grim (especially without music) and many who attended were put off by what at the time were considered necessary steps to assure parishioner safety. Much that is known now was not known at the time. Additionally, we have seen us cooperate as a community, learning to be mindful and serving as role models to others who were attending Mass for the first time.
Please understand that I am not apologizing for what was done then. If errors were made in retrospect they were made to keep people safe and this we most assuredly did. No parish has done it better and the many ministers who have worked so hard on behalf of their fellow parishioners deserve our ongoing thanks and gratitude.
With our shared commitment to safety firmly in place there are some things that we now may adopt, allowing us more opportunity to be welcoming while maintaining the same standard of safety. Consequently starting this weekend certain procedures are therefore being adapted as follows:
1. No one needs to sign up in advance. It is first come, first seated. If someone shows up and capacity has been reached, then unfortunately they will not able to be seated. As a practical matter, I doubt if this will be a problem.
2. When you arrive at the side door there will be the door keeper and usher to greet you. The usher will, like a maitre’d at a restaurant, happily show you to your seat. Sanitizing, mask and distancing requirements remain as do the reduced seating capacity. No loitering will still be in place.
3. All the bathrooms are now open for use by parishioners during Mass. Barriers have been removed and the lights are on as in the past. Only the sacristy and chapel remain off limits.
4. At the end of Mass, folks are free to leave by any of the exits, still observing generous physical distance among each other.
5. The side door entrance will not be locked after the Mass begins. An usher will remain in the area to assist latecomers and to seat them as space allows.
6. Finally, all of our Masses are open to all who wish to attend, as long as we do NOT exceed the maximum capacity in our church, which is 110. No more quizzing or trying to ascertain whether or not you have attended before or are a registered member of the parish. If you show up, agree to wear facial covering at all time during the Mass and we have space, you will be seated. Even if you forgot your mask, fear not! We have extras.
Fr. Stephen Geer
Snow Pictures From St. Joseph the Worker
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Something to think about this Lent: what if we let the blessed ashes help us declutter our minds and our hearts? No matter how big, how scary, how powerful, how fearful, all things get reduced to ashes when we let our Lord Jesus Christ fill our hearts with His Wisdom and show us how to be docile to His Father's Will.
For Friday School Masses: If the school has online classes on that day and Mass is also scheduled on that day, we will have the Mass as scheduled. If online classes are cancelled on a Friday, we will not have Mass. Principal El Youssef will let us know as soon as possible if online classes will be cancelled on a Friday that has a scheduled Mass.
Please go to HOME to know more about our safety protocol. We encourage you to call or email if you have any questions about we do to keep everyone safe inside the church.
We are building this page to be the Parish Daily Check in page - a quick look for the latest updates and announcements. For those who are visiting the St. Therese Church website for the first time and would like to know more about our church, we encourage to go to HOME on the menu bar above. It has pictures and videos of what we have been doing and did last year.
Saturday Vigil Mass with Fr. Steve, January 16, 2021
Second Sunday of Lent, February 28, 2021