Dear Parishioners and Friends of Historic St. Paul Parish,
During these challenging times, my prayer is constantly that health of spirit, mind and body, safety, and grace accompany us, those we love, the most vulnerable, and, indeed, every person as we face this awful pandemic.
Staying healthy at home because we are Team Kentucky and because we take seriously our responsibility in respecting life and safeguarding the life of each and every member of God’s family has, no doubt, required much adjustment and sacrifice. Your parish leadership and staff is constantly discerning how we should adjust in order to continue serving while taking necessary measures to keep all safe and healthy.
This Sunday, the Feast of Divine Mercy, the conclusion of the Octave of Easter, we will broadcast Mass from our sanctuary at 10am on Facebook and on the Facebook feed on our parish website. It will be available for viewing afterward, too.
At 3pm on Sunday, we will live stream the Chaplet of Divine Mercy in English and Spanish from our sanctuary with the Blessed Sacrament exposed and impart a special blessing with the Blessed Sacrament. We encourage you to join us virtually. You will be able to find the prayers for the Chaplet of Divine Mercy on our parish website and our Facebook page.
Our church building is necessarily closed to prevent any possibility of the spread of the COVID-19 virus. We are discerning how best to deep clean it and safeguard it. Beginning next Sunday, 26 April, I will be broadcasting the Sunday Mass from the living room of Brossart House. We will have a simple intimate Mass broadcast from my living room to yours until we are able to again assemble in our church building.
I encourage you, when participating in Mass online, to respond to the prayers and assume the postures and decorum that you would normally assume if assembled in our church building. Your participation in the Mass is a sacred time in your own home; it is important to create a sacred time in any way you can. I encourage you to dress up for Mass, light a candle before Mass begins, place a crucifix and an image of Our Blessed Mother in a special area set up to serve as a sacred space. I will extend a blessing over water at the 26 April Mass and I encourage you to have a special receptacle of water ready in your home so that you can have holy water available in your home. At the same time, I will impart a blessing upon your sacred images and religious articles.
As we continue to suffer the financial impact of our inability to gather in person, your parish counts on your generosity and your sacrifices to keep us afloat. I thank every person who has dug deeper, given a bit more, sacrificed in order to give, and who has signed up for electronic giving via our website or sent in checks. Together we will get through this. God would have it no other way.
Finally, please remember in prayer all those who must die alone, those families who have lost or will lose a loved one without the ability to be physically present to them and for all the families who cannot gather with each other and friends to have a funeral or bury those they love. Having led prayers at a graveside during these days of social distancing, I know too well the added pain and heartbreak endured by already grieving families. We must remember all of these people in prayer daily.
Know you are remembered in prayer. I ask for yours and ask you to please pray for your parish staff, too.
In corde Iesu,
Fr. Richard Watson