Church Services Resume Sunday 5th July 2020 - 8am, 9:30am, 10:30am & 11:30am & Monday-Friday Services 10:30am & 6pm - Saturday 10:30am - All Said Rather Than Sung Masses - Everyone Very Welcome...........Saturday Table Sales, Community Cafe and Book Sales are all Suspended Until Further Notice
To the members of the congregation of Christ Church, St Leonards on Sea
2 July 2020
Dear Friends,
The good news, as I wrote last week, is that from Sunday 5 July we shall be able to invite all who wish to come to church to celebrate the Mass. The Government's guidance emphasises the need to maintain social distancing and at present does not permit singing in church. There is not a specific limitation on numbers attending Mass but it seems prudent to offer a series of Masses on Sunday morning. So Mass will be said at 8.00, 9.30, 10.30 and 11.30. The 10.30 Mass will be more informal and aimed at children with their families. The 11.30 Mass will be streamed (not at 10.30 as in past months). As at present, all celebrations will be in the main body of the Church and you will see a different arrangement of the chairs to permit necessary distancing but of course family units may sit together. We shall carry out sanitising cleaning between each service. We shall keep this pattern on a Sunday morning for the next two weeks and then review it.
We shall also resume the celebration of the eucharist at the former times in the week. So Mass will be at 10.30 and 6.00 pm from Monday to Friday and at 10.30 on Saturday morning. This is a bolder step. I am grateful to my fellow clergy for making this possible. Perhaps we can think about whether we can support this by attending more frequently when we can. I like to think that none of my colleagues will come to the altar and find no-one with whom to celebrate.
Praying together is easier than prayer on one's own. People rely on the prayers we offer each day at Mass, and each day we are given a new portion of holy scripture to ponder. The depths of meaning contained in the eucharist are never exhausted. St Thomas Aquinas summed it up in an antiphon he wrote for Corpus Christi: ‘O sacred feast in which we partake of Christ, his sufferings are remembered, our minds are filled with his grace, and we receive a pledge of the glory which is to be ours, alleluia.’
With good wishes and prayers for you all,
+Peter
