Church of St Mary & St Andrew
   Our lady of Lourdes Mission

Dear friends in Christ,

Gazing out upon my empty parish church these past weeks has reminded me of the lamentations of the Israelites during their exile in Babylon. When thinking of their home in the holy city of Jerusalem they bemoaned: “How lonely sits the city…that was full of people!…The roads to Zion mourn, for none come to the appointed feasts; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan…(Lamentations 1:1;4).” The Church is echoing the concern of the world over the spread of the coronavirus with an unprecedented suspension of public Masses across the globe. This astonishing reality will stretch through Holy Week, preventing the faithful from taking part in the most solemn and sacred rites of the liturgical year

Despite the situation we find ourselves in, we should still make every effort to honor Our Savior during these hallowed days and to bolster the faith of our families.
Below in this e-mail is a simple and sort of bare minimum day-by-day guide on how Holy Week can be observed from home. Fr. Sean Connolly, friend of mine, is parochial vicar at St. Joseph's in Middletown, provides a day-by-day biblical chronology of Holy Week as well as scripture readings and prayers that can be done each day. The chronology follows St. Mark’s Gospel and is taken from this previous article of his that is a biblical chronology and liturgical guide to Holy Week.
I hope you find this helpful as you unfortunately must miss the most solemn and sacred liturgies usually offered during this time. Let us not be too disheartened without them. This trial is a kind of a “long Lent” for us. It too shall pass and Easter Victory will come!

In Our Lord and His Blessed Mother
Fr. Ken and Fr. VJ

https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2018/03/25/holy-week-a-biblical-chronology-and-liturgical-guide/
 

JMJ

April, 1, 2020,

My Dear Brethren,

I hope and pray all is well. As the coronavirus continues to make havoc in our country and throughout the world, Cardinal Dolan has indefinitely suspended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass being offered in public. As we mentioned before, all of the Mass intentions are being honored. Fr. VJ and I offer a private Mass every day fulfilling all of the Mass intentions. When we are sick, we are not obliged to attend to our Sunday/Holy day obligations. Well, we as a nation are experiencing a terrible and devastating sickness. We pray the pandemic will come to a sudden end. In the meanwhile, when not being able to attend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass we can make a Spiritual Communion. The prayer is as follows:

My Jesus, I believe that You are in the Blessed Sacrament. I love You above all things, and I long for You in my soul. Since I cannot now receive You sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though You have already come, I embrace You and unite myself entirely to You; never permit me to be separated from You.

Making a spiritual communion can be as efficacious in receiving our Lord corporally as when we do attend Mass. Our love and our longing to receive Him in Holy Communion may supply the grace of the Sacrament. So many of you have expressed your sadness and even tears at not being able to attend Mass. This saddens Fr. VJ and I very much. As you have told us, we tell you we miss seeing you on Sundays! These Sundays have been so surreal as a priest. Hopefully for all of us, this will lead to a greater love for our Lord, the Mass and His presence to us in the Holy Eucharist.
There is a lot of uncertainty regarding the future and it weighs down our hope but we do have a remedy. Let us storm heaven with our prayers, specifically the Holy Rosary. After the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, the Rosary is the most powerful weapon of prayer. Many miracles have been attributed to the Rosary. Let us get down on our knees and pray. I am confident that if enough people do, it will move Heaven to banish this plague in our midst. Pray the Rosary together as a family. Fr. Patrick Peyton of blessed memory, said the “Family that prays together, stays together.” Let us pray for our families, nation, and indeed the whole world invoking our Blessed Mother’s intercession in this time of great trial. Please, I beg you pray the Rosary!!! And unite yourself to the Holy Mass by praying the Spiritual Communion above. EWTN is a great Catholic channel that televises the Mass every day along with the Rosary and Divine Mercy Chaplet. They also have great programming on the Faith. I also strongly encourage for you to visit formed.org. It has excellent Catholic programming of every kind and its all for free: movies for all ages mostly on the lives of the Saints, documentaries, catechetical programs on the Eucharist, the Sacraments, Mary. It has an awesome series on marriage both for marriage preparation and its meaning and for those who are already married. There are bible studies, daily prayer and meditations, books that can be downloaded to kindle and SO MUCH MORE!!! Please do check it out. To get it for free you must register under our parish St. Mary St. Andrew. When you go to formed.org it will ask you how do you want to sign up. Click “I belong to a parish or organization” It will prompt you to enter the parish you belong to. Start typing in our parish name, and wham you are registered for FREE!!!. Normally, to subscribe to it would cost a lot of money but we get it for free. Please do take advantage of it. Remember, as your children still need to do their school work, so do they need to pray and learn more about God. In the final analysis, what is most important? I hope all would agree our beautiful Catholic Faith, the Faith established by our Lord Himself.
Please know that you are in Fr. VJ’s and my prayers. And if there is anything you need, please don’t hesitate to contact us at the rectory and we’ll see what we can do. Our food pantry will be open to those who need it
.
Cardinal Dolan has decided that we will NOT be allowed to distribute palms on Palm Sunday though the Mass will be taking place privately. At a later date, we will bless palms and distribute them. I am thinking this may be good to do for Corpus Christi Sunday. We can process with our Blessed Lord in the streets of Ellenville with our palms. If there are any changes and or updates that are pertinent, I will let you know ASAP.

Finally, I recently spent time with our bookkeeper sorting through our expenses. I had to sign many checks to pay the bills. In these very difficult times material and financial resources will be limited a great deal for many. ONLY IF YOU CAN, please consider signing up for WeShare which you can by going to the parish webpage smsaparish.org and you will right away see the click under stewardship. There is also a link for WeShare on the parish facebook page. Many are donating by mailing their offerings or dropping them off at the rectory. Thank you for your generosity.

God bless you all,

In Jesus Mary and Joseph,

Fr. Ken and Fr. VJ