Dear parishioners,

Allow me to begin this week with an attempt to make some clarifications on our process for pre-registering for attendance at mass.

You’re all aware that we can pre-register online, by going to the parish website at stmarysvancouver.ca. With respect to online pre-registration, a few things:

  1. For Sunday masses, if we have already reached the maximum numbers of attendees allowed, you will see this incomprehensible message on your screen: “Unfortunately, due to a high volume of responses, we have reached the maximum allowable amount of accepted responses for this Sunday’s masses.” This just means that the mass is full, and you have to choose another one.

  2. For week-day masses, when we have reached our maximum number of attendees for a mass, we simply remove that mass from the list of masses that you see on the screen. So, if the mass you’re looking for isn’t on the screen, it means that it is already filled, and you need to look for another mass to attend.

  3. Several people have told me that they registered online, and yet their name doesn’t appear on our list of pre-registered attendees. Iven, our IT person, is looking into this. If you have registered and your name isn’t on our list, we will let you in on the condition that we’re not already at capacity.

  4. Please don’t assume, because we’ve let you in even though your name isn’t on our list, that pre-registration isn’t really necessary. Pre-registration continues to be required for attendance at all Sunday and evening masses.

With respect to pre-registering by phone

  1. The number to call is 604-435-9611 extension 0.

  2. You can’t pre-register by simply leaving a message. If Lorna doesn’t pick up the phone, leave your name and phone number and she will get back to you. It could happen, in fact it has happened, that at the moment you leave the message, we’ve already reached capacity. That is why, if you’re pre-registering by phone you simply must speak with Lorna.

With respect to pre-registering by email

  1. Just a reminder, the email address is [email protected]

  2. In your email, leave your name, your email address, and a phone number, in case Lorna needs to speak with you.

Hopefully, this will help.

My second topic is Formed.org. You will find a write-up on this excellent online faith formation service in the parish bulletin, and soon, I hope, on our parish website, together with directions as to how you can log in. Obviously, many of you are already aware of this site and using it. The reason I know this is that it has been brought to my attention just this week that for the week of July 26 – August 4, St. Mary’s Parish, Vancouver was the #1 parish in Canada in terms of time spent by parishioners on Formed.org!

We are working on bringing up to date the message you receive when you call the parish office. For the time being, just let me remind you that Theresa is away indefinitely and Rocelyn has left us definitively, so please don’t leave messages in their voice mailbox.

I’ll stop here. I’m beginning to think that perhaps the length of my pastor’s corners is doing some harm in terms of getting the message across!

Have a safe, blessed week, 

Fr. Guy