Volunteers
Dear sisters & brothers in Christ,
I pray that you are blessed and that your Lenten pilgrimage is off to a holy start. Since most of us are still spending more time at home this might be the perfect Lent to really focus on your faith and deepening your relationship with Jesus. It is a great time to develop your personal, as well as, your family’s prayer life. For those of you who are still at risk, we have been able to improve our streaming and we will be streaming our various Lenten activities, such as, The Stations of The Cross (Wednesdays @ noon), Eucharist Adoration (Fridays @ noon - 3:00 pm) and our “Jesus Mission” at the end of Lent. We also have our subscription to focus.org, and so, if you haven’t checked it out please do.
Most of us look for little ways in which we can return to a more “normal” way of life. We are very happy that we have been given permission to begin doing our catechism classes in person. Maureen and her teachers have been strategizing on how to do so as safely as possible. We are also hoping to get more of you involved in the daily life of the parish. One area where we could use help is with our ministries that surround our masses so that the same people do not have to do it week after week. Lent is a great time to get involved and one of the benefits of doing a liturgical ministry is the simple fact that you are at church anyway. And so, whether you want to return to a pre-pandemic ministry or do something you’ve never done before now is the time. Here is a list of some of the ministries: lectors, ushers, music (choir, cantors, musicians), sacristans, funeral-sacristans, livestream, Eucharistic Ministers (while we are not distributing The Precious Blood, it is nice to be able to rotate people), cleaning, etc. We are also looking for people to lead The Stations of The Cross on Wednesdays at noon and people to be present during Eucharistic Adoration on Fridays.
Speaking of returning to ministries, I would like to begin to partially restore our altar server ministry. While we still cannot have servers in the sanctuary, I would like to ask our teens to be Cross Bearer, as long as they have their parents permission. If you would like to be a Cross Bearer I ask that you contact Carol. I would add that if you come to mass and don’t see anyone else doing so, please feel free to ask the priest if we need a Cross Bearer. Once you’ve placed The Cross in its stand you can sit with your family and then just come up and get it at the end of mass for the recessional. I will leave the wearing of the alb up to the individual, so don’t feel like you need to wear it until the server ministry is back in fully.
Finally, a word of thanks to those who have filled in the gap during this time and often fulfilled their ministry Sunday after Sunday. While every parish relies on volunteers, we are very fortunate here at St. Al’s to have so many parishioners who are so generous with their time and talents. God bless.
In the Redeemer, Fr. Rick