Pastor’s Letter & August 16 Bulletin

Pastor’s Letter & August 16 Bulletin

14 Aug 2020 | Posted by: chadmin

The August 16 bulletin is available online.

To make a reservation to attend Mass, click here.

August 12, 2020

Dear friend,

St. Philomena School will officially reopen on Tuesday, August 18. I am personally excited to welcome the kids back to campus. It’s been a long and very quiet five months with school closed. The teachers and staff have prepared well to welcome the kids back. With the current pandemic, things will look a bit different this year. The kids will all be required to wear masks in the school building and will stay within their classroom cohort or bubble. Along with all the cleaning protocols, keeping the kids masked and with their own 20ish classmates, we hope to have our healthiest year ever. Parents are asked to temperature check at home, before a child is brought to school. We will, of course, take temperatures at school, but the check at home will both help the parent not have to return to school to pick up a kid 15 minutes after the child is dropped off and also help prevent sick kids from coming into the building. There are certain challenges to keeping kids at a safe social distance but our staff is prepared to provide a safe, clean, and friendly environment for our St. Philomena Tigers. Please say a prayer for all our teachers, staff, students and parents. The more spiritual help we can get from God, the better off we will all be!

When we reopened St. Philomena Church for public Mass, we began using Eventbrite for individual families to schedule a pew. This process has worked well and we will continue it. From the beginning, I asked families and individuals to schedule every few weeks to allow others to come to church, if desired. Prior to the pandemic, we would range from 250 to 450 people at any one weekend Mass. We currently limit Mass attendance to 180 people. I have recently had several people share with me that they are still scheduling Mass every few weeks. The last month or so we’ve had room at each of the Masses for more people, especially the 7:30 pm Mass. At this point, please feel free to sign up for Mass each week. If we start to have a challenge with numbers, we will process that when the time comes. Please continue to contact the Parish Office if you have difficulties reserving a pew for Mass. I think our process has worked well and with our cleaning protocols in place and the use of masks during Mass, I am confident we have a safe environment for us to gather and pray, while respecting the reality of Covid-19. Thanks for all the support.

God bless,

Father David