Between the porch and the altar the priests the Lord's ministers shall weep Gosh...this made me think of my confessions last week. A sign on the front doors to the church read, “ Church closed...confessions being heard on the rectory patio.” The patio was directly across from the church altar..... Makes you think. Fr. was obviously distressed...I spoke to him about the latest message from the Akita seer....to put on sack cloth and ashes. He’d never heard of the approved Akita apparition. I mentioned the possibility that God might be using this crisis to bring souls back to him.... I hope he studies Akita. He is very intelligent, but even our priest are unaware of Our Lady’s approved apparition.... Very sad....
I understand Don....there is so much anxiety...especially for those charged with a family and protecting them. You are among many.... Praying that you are lifted by the Holy Spirit!
Totally agree, everything else is out of our hands, and we can moan and wail all day long and it won't change a thing. all it will do is ruin our peace
What troubles me most about this ban on public Masses is how many people are happy that Sunday Mass is no longer an obligation - as though assisting at Mass were a chore or punishment, and the Bishops were finally relieving them of the Mass burden. I think that's very sad and says more about the state of the faith than any survey or opinion poll. Sure, members of this forum are sad but how many Catholics do you know, even regularly practising Catholics, are genuinely sad that they can't go to Mass on Sunday? Not many of my acquaintance. The Bishops probably are hoping, like the rest of us, that the loss of Mass will bring a surge of people back to practising the faith. Maybe it will in the short term - for a few weeks or months at best. Long term? I doubt it because, as Fr. Malachi Martin described it so well, many have lost the faith and don't know that they've lost it. When we had adorations in our huge parish church, every second pew was closed off. The pews are at least three metres and possibly four metres long. People spread out. Couples who arrived together sometimes sat together but not all couples did so. Mostly, one person sat one end of a pew with the nearest person to them sitting two pews away on the far end of the pew. That's a distance multiple times mandated by the health & safety experts and far greater than the distance between the WHO people at their press conferences. There are hand sanitisers at each door of our church (not just for the virus - I think we have a Howard Hughes type on our parish council). I noticed someone use a disinfectant wipe on the pew. I do the same whenever I visit the church. Whenever I do the stations of the cross, I use a disinfectant wipe when holding onto something for support as I genuflect at each station. I paid another visit to church today (not my own parish because I would have been too annoyed had I arrived to find the doors locked). I stayed a while. In that time, there were never more than four people inside the very big church. Most of the time I had the church all to myself. I also did some errands today for an at risk family member who listened to the "no need to worry, just wash your hands and the supermarkets won't run short" advice. I went to the pharmacy, to a DIY store and a fairly big supermarket. I was closer to other people in all three places than in any church I have been in since this virus emergency began - even when the Government was dilly-dallying about the St. Patrick's Day parade. Of the three, the DIY store was the safest, with a member of staff counting and limiting the numbers permitted to enter. The supermarket was the worst. There weren't many customers and no queue. They had hand sanitiser and disinfectant wipes on a table inside the door, but there was nobody stopping the woman practically breathing down my neck at the table or her two children jostling and playing around me as I used the sanitiser. If I get the corona virus it won't be because I went to Mass, adorations or simply paid a visit to the Blessed Sacrament. And who can we blame for the young people spitting at the elderly and policemen in our streets? Not Catholics who have more trust in God than politicians who prattled on for ages about all being well because the virus only kills old people. Did priests stop hearing Confessions during the famine when typhus had people dropping like flies?
I was very angry with the Bishops initially but now I’m more disappointed. When this is over I could find it difficult to attend my local church whose priests cancelled everything on the back of the Bishop’s statement, even though a neighbouring parish in same diocese still holds adoration. I’d be more inclined to travel 40 mins to a monastery where it has been, and is business as usual!
I was at Church at Adoration during the week and got some dirty looks on the way out. I wondered why and realised it might have been because of a bout of coughing I had inside. At least I think that's what it was. I can't blame people for being scared. This Traditional Church near me appears to be the only one open in the entire city. There has been a very steady flow of peoplein and out all day, more and more all the time. I think people will remember this when it is all over. On top of this the priest and seminarian have never left the place. People will make comparisons..and so they should.
The longer Churches are closed and the Mass stopped the more people will wonder what Churches, Masses and priests were there for in the first place. It's a bit like not seeing the Captain who vanished when the storm hits; the crew would be inclined to wonder if they really needed a Captain in the first place.
And it makes it easier for governments in the future to shut us down. Garbabandal prophecy says Mass will be suppressed and hard to get just before the warning. So that will in itself be a sign when we are persecuted.
The other interesting thing is if this was to go on for a long time the Churches will become bankrupt. If that happens the state might offer to help out, but with strings attached?
Dear friends, Please be careful about using the public “liquid sanitizers”. Every person using these placed in stores, churches, etc. are being touched by everyone...thus their germs are on these bottles. If you use them, you are touching a container being used by everyone and possibly contaminating yourself if they are carrying the virus. BRING YOUR OWN SANITIZER if you have it. Please don’t use the containers, pumps etc. provided by stores etc. It defeats the whole purpose. Just my opinion. Keep safe....bring your own wipes and gloves as well if you have them.
Very good point! I remember watching a news piece years ago, when there was a bad flu outbreak or something of the sort. They went through a house with a germ meter{?} and found no germs on anything{not even a pound of hamburg let on the counter} except the liquid hand soap dispenser. So, I have been cleaning my hand sanitizer and soap dispensers with bleach cleaners.
I'm inclined to give them all the benefit of the doubt on the suspension of public Masses, although I think they could have worked out a system of having daily Mass with very low numbers of parisioners present. Bear in mind that when the Bishops made their decision the news was full of a story from Korea or Vietnam about some kind of cult calling itself Christian being the cause of the spread of the virus in that country. We don't know what kind of pressure was put on them and from what quarters. I'm even inclined to cut the politicians some slack. Everybody chooses to play down the fact that China gifted the pandemic to the world - probably because the world has become so dependent on China and they will let nothing stand in the way of globalisation. I don't believe that our politicians want to copy the Chinese tactic of using the virus to justify installing cctv on apartment blocks or having a tracking app on the mobile phone of every citizen but it's very worrying to see so many people wanting to copy China's control over its people. The most worrying aspect is that people are calling on governments to restrict their freedom. I think that every parish has the facilities to keep Confession available, even where the church is the only parish building. There's enough space in every church to have Confession without risking the health of either confessor or penitent.