Hope all are doing well. Fr. Vincent and I send you our best and are keeping you in our prayers. Please keep us in yours.
• We are
live streaming our daily Mass from our chapel at 9 a.m. on our CtR YouTube channel. Thanks to those who joined in to pray with us this morning as we launched this new initiative. We heard from a number of you who enjoyed the opportunity to join us in spiritual communion. Each day’s Mass will be available for 24 hours and then the following day’s Mass will replace it.
• We ask for you patience as we keep fine-tuning our “production value.” My thanks to
Tony Croes, our Director of IT, and
Carrie Taylor, our Director of Communications, for their efforts in getting us connected. We’ll offer Mass every day, Monday – Friday, at 9 a.m., so join us live or watch it later. But I encourage you, to the extent possible, to do more than just “watch” Mass.
Truly “pray” Mass. Just as it is important to do so when we are physically attending Mass, so too online should we strive for “full, conscious, and active participation” in the Sacred Liturgy.
• This Sunday, March 22, we will live stream our 9 a.m. Mass from the Church. We’ll have music with it and it’s my hope it will have the look and feel of our regular Mass. We know that it is not the same as being here, of course, and while that is sad, it’s still important for us to strive for beauty in our worship for the glory of God. Please join us at that time at the same
above link on our YouTube channel. This will be the only Mass that is on the internet from our parish, but Fr. Vincent and I will be celebrating the other Sunday masses privately.
•
We will have confessions this evening, Wednesday, March 18, from 5:30 – 7 p.m. Enter via the chapel and there you can spend time in prayer in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament. We’ll have two of our deacon candidates,
David Carrasco and
Mike Jones, present as we’ll be monitoring how many enter at any one time so as to keep proper spacing. This is a work in progress, so again I ask for your patience. We’ll see how it works and get a system down shortly. We’ll also have confessions on Saturday at our normal time of 9 a.m.
• A reminder that we will not have our Friday Fish Fry and Stations of the Cross this week, or for the rest of Lent, but we are going to have something new that I think you might like. This Friday, March 20, at 7 p.m.
we invite you to come to Drive-In Benediction.
As I was walking the campus last evening, getting some exercise so I don’t go stir-crazy, I had an epiphany. The front of our church is so pretty with the stained glass window, especially when it is backlit from the lights in the narthex. And we have the big plaza out front too, right in front of the parking spaces. How about we try offering Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament where you could park and remain your cars, and then gaze out and see the Monstrance with the Blessed Sacrament?
I’ll process out the doors of the church and onto the plaza, taking time so that all might be in the presence of our Eucharistic Lord. After a few minutes of adoration I’ll close with Benediction (blessing all present who remain in their cars – let’s remember to practice social distancing) and then return the host to the tabernacle in the church. If you like, you are welcome to remain in prayer for a while before you drive off and then we’ll turn off the lights at 8 p.m. Let’s give it a shot, weather permitting. In a sense, just as restaurants are offering “to go” meals, this is a new way we can take the Bread of Life “to go” as well.
• Lastly, tomorrow, Thursday, March 19 is the Feast Day of St. Joseph, Husband of the Blessed Virgin Mary and Patron of the Universal Church.
Pope Francis has called upon Catholics throughout the world to join him at 9 p.m. Rome time (that’s 3 p.m. for us in Houston) to
join him in praying the Rosary using the Luminous Mysteries. Wherever you find yourself at 3 p.m. tomorrow, please join us in prayer. Here’s what Pope Francis said about it:
"I join in the appeal of the Italian bishops who in this health emergency have promoted a moment of prayer for the whole country. Every family, every faithful, every religious community: all united spiritually tomorrow at 9 p.m. [3 p.m. Central] in the recitation of the Rosary, with the Mysteries of Light. I will accompany you from here. We are led to the luminous and transfigured face of Jesus Christ and His Heart by Mary, Mother of God, health of the sick, to whom we turn with the prayer of the Rosary, under the loving gaze of Saint Joseph, Guardian of the Holy Family and of our families. And we ask him to take special care of our family, our families, especially the sick and the people who are taking care of them: doctors, nurses, and volunteers, who risk their lives in this service."
St. Joseph, pray for us!
Our Lady of the Rosary, pray for us!