“Why are you afraid? Have you no faith?” Mk 4,40

Dear parishioners,

I just love these words of Jesus from today’s gospel. They arouse in us the wild hope that in principle, faith crowds out fear. More on this in this Sunday’s homily.

For now, as usual, just a few things.

We are now allowed 80 people in the church for any gathering. Pre-registration remains necessary because we have to control numbers and because we still have to compile contact information for everyone who was present at any given gathering.

This increase in the number of people allowed into the church has a consequence. Ushering will become considerably more challenging. For this reason, I appeal to your understanding, your patience, and your compliance with the things they ask of you. Remember, they’re just doing their job, as best they can.

Judging from the very low number of people who pre-registered for last week’s Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday morning masses, it seems that the message wasn’t clear enough, so I repeat: these three masses are now open for in-person attendance. As always, pre-registration is required.

All of our pre-pandemic masses, in fact, are now open for in-person attendance, with the exception of the Sunday 9:30 a.m. mass. We’re concerned about the inadequate time between the Sunday morning masses. We still need to avoid people arriving crossing paths with people leaving. On the topic of people mingling between masses, I have to repeat this unpleasant request: please keep your contacts with other parishioners on the parish grounds to a minimum.

Please note that the evening masses on Wednesday and Thursday of this week are cancelled. We are celebrating the St. Mary’s School confirmations on these two evenings.

Given the fact that we are now allowed 80 people at every mass, and that the numbers are well below 50 at several of our weekday masses, it’s alright to pre-register for more than one weekday mass. The limitation on Sunday masses remains, because we’re consistently filling our quota at every single mass, which means that demand is high. So we ask you again to please, for the time being, pre-register for just one Sunday mass per month, so as to give as many people as possible an opportunity to attend mass.

Last call for the 50/50 draw! Tickets available from our parish website. Last day to buy tickets is this Wednesday, and the draw is on Friday at 1:00 p.m. The jackpot now stands at $14280!

That’s it for this week. Enjoy the beautiful weather. May God keep us all safe and well until this is over.

Fr. Guy