My Dear Friends,

Our first Sunday back together is officially in the books. It was so wonderful to have our church filled with people once again. I use the term filled loosely because we really couldn’t be filled because of social distancing. Yes, I know some of these restrictions are frustrating, but as many parishioners told me: “Anything to be able to receive the Eucharist.”

There are many things that we will improve on, and obviously all of us are still getting used to this new reality. For your priests, it was difficult preaching to all of you and not being able to see your facial expressions while we preach. It may sound trivial, but we feed off your instant feedback, if you will, during a homily. It was difficult not seeing your smiles, your singing, and it was difficult not being able to greet you after Mass especially when we had gone 12 weeks without seeing you.

But things will get better. We pray that we can hopefully open up more of the church soon, especially for prayer between Masses. However we were firmly focusing on opening up just for Mass to offer you the Body of Christ. It was a challenging task but so worth it.

I ask you to join me in thanking our dedicated volunteer ushers who trained for ten days on all the procedures that needed to be done in order for us to reopen. Many of them were here all of last Sunday. This was not an easy task because many parishioners did not know of the social distancing restrictions or were taken aback. That’s ok. We’re all used to coming to church to disconnect from the world, but unfortunately because we live in this world, we have to comply with the guidelines that ensure our safety. Our ushers did an admirable job under tremendous pressure and doing things we have never done before. Please thank them when you are leaving Mass. They have dedicated so much of their time, and away from their families, in order for our church to reopen.

I also want to invite more of you to join our volunteer hospitality team during this time. We need at least 10 dedicated people at every Mass to usher people in, help usher during Mass, and then stay to clean and disinfect the church after Mass. This is a herculean task, and we need more people to help accomplish this goal. This is your church. Please help us keep it open and welcoming for your fellow parishioners. If you are interested in volunteering, please call the parish office and speak with Maria Elena.

Again, I can’t tell you how happy all the parish priests were at the end of last Sunday. Please continue to pray for us as we navigate out of this pandemic and continue to pray for each other. We’ve heard it said so often that we are all in this together. Those words go deeper when we apply them to our faith community. On this Trinity Sunday in which we celebrate God who is a community of love, may we ask our Good Lord to draw each of us into this divine mystery so that in the face of adversity we can take comfort that we are indeed part of a community of love.

God bless you all,