Pastor's Letter for the July 19, 2020 bulletin

This might be largely an echo of last week’s bulletin. In part, we seem so close to either progressing toward slowing down the spread of COVID-19 or returning to some degree of the lockdown situation.  In his address on Wednesday evening you could tell that Governor DeWine so strongly wants to resist having to make masks mandatory and returning to another lockdown.  Thank you to all of you who, again, are playing it extra safe now that the number of cases in our county has been increasing.

Thankfully, it seems that health care professionals have a better handle on managing this virus so that the mortality rate remains relatively low.  Nevertheless, it sounds like a fair number of those who have contracted it, especially those with other underlying conditions, have had lasting effects.  So, let’s do our best to keep our homes and the various buildings on our parish properties havens of cleanliness.  

We’ll continue to provide a live stream of at least one Mass per day at our parish’s Facebook page [Christ Our Light Parish, Guernsey County, OH].  And, Lord willing, we will improve our parish’s YouTube channel [it has a very similar “address”: Christ Our Light Parish Guernsey County Ohio] so that these liturgies could be accessed through that means as well.  For some people YouTube is easier to access than Facebook. We’ll continue to try different camera angles and ways of boosting and improving the sound quality. 

We have also been live streaming Evening Prayer and Benediction on Wednesdays at 4:30 p.m. and posting the text for that prayer service at our parish website: www.christourlightparish.com.  From the menu or along the top banner you can see the link for “Liturgy of the Hours.” That’s where you can access the text for the weekly Evening Prayer and Benediction, part of our weekly 9:00 a.m. – 9:00 p.m. Eucharistic Adoration.

And, to echo again what I mentioned last week about our Bereavement Haven support group in last week’s letter: in light of scheduling the First Communion Mass for Sunday afternoon last week, please note that our Bereavement Haven support group will meet this week/today, Sunday, July 19th at 2:30 p.m. in the St. Benedict Social Hall (which has sufficient space to maintain safe distances). This group usually meets on the second Sunday afternoon of each month for several years and will plan to continue to do so. The group has recently been discussing a very effective book, Finding a Loving God in the Midst of Grief, reading and reflecting on a chapter-at-a-time.  This week we’re planning to read and reflect on Chapter 4 of that book. Sharing resources like these as well as simply enjoying the time of fellowship have helped this group to be impactful.

May the Lord keep us protected and healthy and, as always, well prepared for the gift of eternal life!