My family has a small chalkboard in our kitchen. When the kids had their first day off school because of the virus we wrote “Day 1 of Social Distancing.” Today the board reads “Day 64 of Social Distancing.” It is hard to believe how quickly and drastically the world changed for us all. In our house, we have celebrated 5 birthdays, Easter, and Mother’s Day in quarantine. We will probably still be social distancing for Father’s Day. Usually, when the weather turns warm in the Spring we clean up our screened porch from the winter dust and invite extended family and friends over for a cookout- not this year.
At church, I am only in my office part-time as I have been trying to observe the recommendations to stay home if possible. I miss people stopping in my office to say “Hi” on their way to daily Mass or after they attend a meeting in the library. I was sad to stop all in person faith formation so abruptly and to have people preparing to receive the Sacraments put them on hold indefinitely. The biggest change was stopping public Mass. We started out recording weekend Masses on iPhones and uploading them to Facebook. At first, that was the best we could do. Father wanted a live stream by Easter- which we managed to get up and going on Holy Thursday. We keep working on improving the video quality- adding a camera, computer, microphone, and live-streaming direct to YouTube. We have now live-streamed 26 Masses so far. A few weeks ago we added a Zoom Virtual Gathering Space to encourage fellowship as we have after Saturday Mass in the Gathering Space. Send me an email to request the Zoom link. We meet at 6:30 (or as close as we can get to 6:30 depending on the end of 5:30 Mass). If we have a group we try to play games. It is a great chance to check in with Father Paul and with fellow parishioners. The rest of my schedule is filled with Zoom meetings, webinars, and online conferences. I’m also trying to find ways to reach out to the parish and encourage everyone to continue with their faith formation. So I organize some resources to share each Monday on the Faith Formation This Week Page and I try to bring attention to the page with my Monday Facebook Live. A small group of us have started an Evening Study Group and hopefully, we will have some more folks join us as we move on to a new topic (go to the parish Facebook page poll to help select the topic). As the governor begins allowing different public spaces to open up, the Diocese is taking a more conservative approach to opening up. I appreciate this slower and safer approach. We are taking things one step at a time. The challenge is in the indefinite timeline. Another challenge is not having the chance to have face to face conversations about what is and is not working. If you have suggestions or feedback about faith formation- please send me an email. I hope you are all staying safe and healthy. I’m looking forward to coming together to celebrate Mass.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
Kelley TanseyFaith Formation Coordinator Archives
June 2021
Categories |