Criteria for Mass Schedule 9/19

Thanks for a Great Cookout, and

Criteria for the New Mass Schedule

How We Are Determining Our New Sunday Mass Schedule

A warm thank you to all who made our PWC cookout last Sunday a successful celebration of the new ministry year in our St. Martha-St. Mary Collaborative faith family! Under the guidance of co-chairs Kathie Medeiros and Kathleen Hallett, and with support from the Pastoral Team, this event was made possible by many volunteers from the cookout team, our music ministries, the Knights of Columbus, and our confirmation program - as well as all those who came to share in the food, fun, and festivities!

As we work toward a new, unified Lord’s Day Mass schedule for our collaborative parishes, I shared in the previous column the reasons we need to change our collaborative’s weekend Mass schedule (see our website or Facebook if you missed it). This time I want to explain how - the timeline and principles that guided the process. There is no single statistic or consideration that determines the schedule. Rather, we are trying to balance the pastoral, liturgical, practical, and mission needs of our entire community of faith. We also consider the Mass times in the neighboring parishes so that, when you have a particularly busy weekend, you will have more nearby options than we are able to provide on our own.

With the limited number of lay participants and clergy we have, we are striving to provide reasonable opportunities for people in different circumstances to participate, while also supporting a reverent celebration of the Eucharist and a genuine gathering of the local Catholic community. We can no longer sustain unnecessary multiplication of Masses simply for convenience; yet we will have more engaging liturgies with fuller churches once we stop splintering our congregation across seven Masses.

We also need a schedule that realistically can be sustained by one full-time priest. Even when there is a shortage of priests, Church law limits a priest to celebrating two Masses in a day, with a third permitted on Sunday when there is a genuine pastoral need. Time between Masses is important as well - for pastoral conversations with ministers and parishioners, preparing and tidying the church, clearing parking areas, and traveling between our two churches. Masses cannot overlap so the schedule is physically possible for one priest to cover in an emergency, and manageable when the pastor is away for vacation or retreat.

These changes will also put less stress on our volunteers, the pastoral team (clergy & staff), and other lay ministers. As long as most parishioners dedicate ourselves to walking this journey together to keep our parishes strong, the changes may also put less stress on our financial resources as well. Because our parishes continue to have separate finances, we encourage those attending Mass at the other church to take an envelope for your home parish as you enter and place their offertory in that envelope. In this way, we can worship together while continuing to support the parish community to which we belong.

Just as important as attendance, ministers, and finances, is the pastoral purpose of our collaborative parishes, which is larger than simply maintaining the existing pattern. We remain committed to evangelization, lifelong faith formation, quality liturgy, participation of children and families, and drawing in new Mass participants, all which contribute to a strong Sunday experience.

Perhaps most importantly, I ask everyone to begin thinking of the entire collaborative schedule as “our” schedule. Whether you like early, mid-morning, midday, or evening Masses, your preference may be scheduled at the other church. That will require some flexibility from all of us as we grow into this new way of worshiping together. 

Several of you have emphasized the need to finalize and implement this new schedule as soon as possible, so here are the target dates. Having completed the consultations I promised last week, we are coming toward consensus on a couple of final options for the new schedule. We are asking you to join us in prayer as we ask the Holy Spirit to confirm one of those options, which will be announced electronically sometime next week and, in the Masses, and bulletin the weekend of September 26-27. There will then be a two-week campaign to publicize the new schedule, which we expect will begin on the weekend of October 10-11. (Although unlikely, these dates might have to shift a bit - but not by much.)

In closing, I remind you that we have reason to have great hope that this transition will go smoothly. We have been greatly impressed in how many parishioners have chosen to worship in each other’s church when that Mass time was better for their schedule - which makes our St. Martha & St. Mary parishioners more like brothers and sisters!