No Change, Small Change
If you remember way back in January, we began having Sunday Mass at St. John and St. Lawrence after months of stricter social distancing. At that time, we proposed a temporary Mass schedule which would be tested for about six months. When pastoral council met in early March and early June, we discussed the times and any comments or suggestions from parishioners.
One of the complicated matters about the Mass schedule is that we have four parishes and two priests, who haven’t figured out how to bi-locate yet (maybe that spiritual gift is coming soon). Changing one Mass time at a given parish has a domino effect on other Mass times. There isn’t a perfect Mass schedule that will make everyone happy. We try to keep the most popular Mass times at the largest buildings. For example, our most crowded Masses are the 10am at St. Joseph and 10:30am at Immaculate Conception. It seems fitting that they are at the two largest buildings.
After reviewing comments (or lack thereof) from parishioners, pastoral council unanimously suggested to me that we keep the current Mass schedule. There were a couple of concerns raised by parishioners, some said that we don’t need a 6:00pm Sunday evening Mass. However, this Mass has grown in popularity over the past few months, especially during summertime. One nice thing about this Mass is that it gathers people from all four parishes, it is truly a region-wide Mass. For this reason we are going to have the Sunday evening Mass on July 4th, even though the festival will be happening at the same time. We may not always have a Sunday evening Mass, but it seems to be working for now.
Some parishioners voiced their disappointment that St. Joseph doesn’t have an early morning Mass. This is an unfortunate reality, but there seems room for everyone at St. John or St. Lawrence at the 8:00am or 8:30am Mass. They are both normally pretty tight, but we haven’t had to turn people away or had tons of people standing. These early Masses are the good kind of full.
One final reason to keep the same Mass schedule is the ongoing Beacons of Light initiative. As the Archdiocese of Cincinnati announces new “families of parishes” in early November, there is a chance that we will have to work with other parishes to revise our Mass schedule by July 1, 2022. It didn’t seem prudent to change the Mass schedule in January 2021, summer 2021, and possibly again in early/mid 2022. Changing the schedule at this point seemed unnecessary considering that it may happen again in the coming months.
We will make one small change concerning First Saturday Mass. When I arrived in July 2016, the only Saturday morning Masses were on First Saturday; there weren’t morning Masses any other Saturdays of the month. There were two Masses each month rotating between the four parishes. In November 2016 we added a Saturday morning Mass on the other Saturdays at St. John. Now it seems superfluous to have two First Saturday Masses, when we could get by with just one First Saturday Mass. With so many weddings and funerals on Saturdays, it doesn’t seem wise to have an extra and unnecessary Mass on Saturdays.
Beginning in August we will have just one First Saturday Mass each month beginning at 8:00am. On even numbered months it will be at Immaculate Conception and on odd numbered months it will be at St. Joseph. Saturday Mass on the other Saturdays will continue at St. John. Thanks for understanding this slight change.
Sincerely in Christ,
Fr. Sean Wilson
