Two & a half weeks ago, I visited w/ a man named Myron Akuszewski who was in hospice at his home. I anointed him and gave him his last Holy Communion, known as “Viaticum”, which means “food for the journey home.” I celebrated Myron’s funeral Mass this past Wednesday & expressed the sympathy of the parish community to Paula, his wife of 29 years. Myron was a faithful church goer and a man of compassion as he took care of his handicapped sister-in-law. May he now receive the reward promised to those who see Christ “in the least of our brothers & sisters.”
I met this week with some of the priests in our “district” or those who are in neighboring parishes (we meet on a regular basis) at Our Lady Queen of Peace. We talked about how the pandemic is affecting our parishes and shared ideas for how we might plan for Christmas. It was suggested that trying to poll the parishioners to see how many planned to attend one of our Christmas Masses would not really be helpful as many of those who attend Christmas Mass, especially on Christmas Eve, are not regular church-goers who would know that we are taking such a poll. After hearing some of the suggestions of my brother priests, I am thinking that we would change our Christmas schedule this year because of the pandemic, knowing that the majority of people attend the 4pm Mass on Christmas Eve and very few people attend the 7pm or 10pm Masses on Christmas Eve. So at this point, we are thinking that we will keep our 4pm Mass on Christmas Eve, add another Mass at 5:30pm Christmas Eve but then cancel the 7pm & 10pm Christmas Eve Masses as they are not well attended & with the pandemic, most likely even less so. We would continue to have the 8am and 11am Masses on Christmas Day. Nothing is set in stone yet (though I did see a picture recently of a stone that had chiseled on it: “Nothing is set in stone”!) but I would appreciate your feedback on this change for this year. Please keep in mind that the bishops of Ohio have continued to extend the dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass this year even for the Christmas feast, especially given the rise in coronavirus cases at this time. But we do hope that you consider that our efforts to contain the virus through social distancing & the mandatory use of masks has seemed to be effective during the months since we’ve been celebrating Mass publicly again. Thank you for your cooperation with these efforts.
It’s been wonderful to take many long walks through the neighborhood with Michaela during this Indian summer which apparently has broken many records for so many warm days in a row at this time of year. To walk without a coat in November has been really unusual. The only drawback is that now that our boiler has been fired up again due to the colder weather we started having last month, it can get pretty warm in the rectory as there is always some heat coming out of the registers even when the blowers are not running. But I understand that cooler weather is creeping up on us this week so we’ll have to adjust for that.
As I type this, the Deacon just texted me a picture of a coffee mug that says, “PASTOR” Warning! Anything you say or do could be used in a sermon!” So yes, only say or do something that could be used to praise you in a sermon.