Dear Brothers and Sisters,
In the Gospel this
weekend Jesus says:
‘Come to me, all you who labour and are
overburdened, and I will give you rest. Shoulder my yoke and learn from me, for
I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. Yes, my
yoke is easy and my burden light.’ (Mt 11:28-30)
This coming week the good news is we are now able to respond to the Lord’s invitation, not only in prayer at home, but also in silent individual prayer before the Tabernacle at church. Amen! Amen! Before I give more information I would like us as a family to thank those parishioners who have stepped forward and offered their time and services to make the re-opening of St. Mary’s a reality. As you will be aware many churches in the diocese are still closed and will continue to be so for many reasons, one being a lack of volunteers. Thank you to all those who came on Thursday for the first session in tackling the church grounds. Thank you to those who came on Friday to install and set up the PPE. Thank you to those two teams who came throughout Saturday to deep clean the church. Thank you to all those who have been preparing rotas. Thank you to all those who have stepped forward as stewards and have filled in the numerous safeguarding forms and watched the diocesan online training video to receive their certificate. Thank you all and may God Bless you for what you have done and continue to do for our church.
Bishop John in his homily for St. Peter and St. Paul made this
statement about the re-opening of churches and restrictions on public worship
from this weekend onwards.
In this diocese it will mean that: “that very few
churches in this Diocese will open for Mass next Sunday. That is because there
are numerous rules and regulations and conditions that need to be in place to
do with social distancing, cleansing, the stewarding of people and indeed the
Church must be deep cleaned after every service. That is going to rely on any
number of volunteers and not all churches will be able to meet those conditions
by next weekend. And let us be clear about this too, even those few churches,
and others will follow on as quickly as possible, even those few churches will
have a much reduced capacity.”
In addition Bishop John reminded us that there is no obligation to attend Sunday Mass at this time.
Initially St. Mary’s will be open this week for private silent
individual prayer thanks to our volunteer stewards. The times of opening will
be:
Wednesday 8th July 2020 9:30am -11am
Friday 10th July 2020 5pm –
6:30pm
Saturday 11th
July 9:30am – 11am
If more people step forward to be stewards we can have more opening times and hopefully public Mass. Please contact Jennifer Pickles for more details about being a steward. jennifer.pickles@virginmedia.com
In line with government directives and diocesan requirements I am
obliged to draw your notice to important information about the use of the
church building during the current Covid-19 restrictions.
• All the doors of church will be open for
ventilation requirements. However, because we have to abide by a one way system
the official entrance will be the right front door of church. The small side
door of church (Hawthorn Ave) is only to be used for those who are disabled,
those who cannot manage the front door steps and for emergencies. The official
designated exit will be the left front door of church, again this is
signposted.
• As you come into church you will be welcomed by a steward
(wearing a blue identification lanyard). They will direct you to the hand
sanitising station and guide you to a specific area of church where you can
spend time in silent prayer. Normally we sit where we like in church, but these
are not normal times and we do have official directives to follow in the
interest of public safety and hygiene.
• When you leave church we ask you to follow the one
way system, which is signposted, to the official exit where you will find
another hand sanitising station.
• There will be a steward at each entrance and one
designated cleaner for each time church is opened. The stewards will be wearing masks and gloves
but people visiting are nor required to do so.
• The 2 meter social distancing rule still applies
in the church.
• Stewards are not allowed to manually assist a
visitor. We would kindly ask, at this present moment, those who have mobility
issues do not visit St. Mary’s for the time being.
• There will be no votive candles at present.
• The piety stall is temporarily suspended.
• There will be a donation basket at the foot of the
sanctuary if you wish to make a gift for the up keep of the church.
• Please be respectful of the Lord’s House. The pubs
are re-opening for socialising, peoples gardens are free for chatting, St.
Mary’s is open for praying. He is truly present in the Tabernacle. Talk to Him,
Our Lord, because he is waiting to listen.
Many of our normal routines, regular practices and everyday customs in regards to church have changed. Change is never nice and always a little unsettling. Thank goodness the Lord is unchanging because He, and He alone, is the one certainty we have in life. I would ask that people be respectful to the stewards, who are all volunteers giving up their time, and abide by the health and safety requirements put in place by the diocese. One of the Vicar’s General, Mgr. Daly and the former PP here at St. Mary’s, has communicated recently to all Salford diocesan priests the following:
Message from Mgr John Daly VG
Clergy are reminded that churches may only open
for private prayer and public worship with a Covid-19 risk assessment having
been carried out. Failing to observe this government directive, which is now
law, could mean serious consequences involving fines and even the possibility
of imprisonment.
As you can see, failure to abide by official directives will have
consequences. It would be a shame to have to ask somebody to leave who was
putting others a risk because of selfish actions and behaviour. Let’s work
together so that returning to some kind of normality may be a possibility in
the future.
Over the next two weeks St. Mary’s will be open for private silent
prayer. During this time hopefully more volunteers will come forward as
stewards and then we can begin to look at re-introducing public weekday Masses.
God Bless and keep praying
Fr. O’Brien