(A) I discussed the situation with Fr. Armando, with our deacons and with the men in diaconal formation. One obvious issue for all of us: with two priests, we can no longer offer “duplicate Masses”, Masses going on at the same time. In case of a sudden illness, one of our two priests must be ready to say every Sunday Mass. A new schedule must allow for this possibility.
After agreeing that we would have to cancel the two Donnellan Hall Masses, we then studied the patterns of attendance at our “Sunday” Masses (in English): the Saturday Vigil and all the Masses of Sunday. We looked at the Sunday Mass attendance records kept by our ushers over a two year period. The following shows how our 2007-2008 weekend Masses compare in regard average attendance (the list goes from most attended to least attended).
1st. The two 10:30 AM Masses (average, 708).
2nd. The 6:00 PM Mass with the Life Teen community (average attendance, 459).
3rd. The Vigil Mass of Saturday at 5:30 PM (average attendance, 357).
4th. The 9:00 AM Mass (average attendance, 334).
5th. The Noon Mass (average attendance, 309)
6th. The 7:30 AM Mass (average attendance, 163).
As the average attendance of the two 10:30 AM Masses is far beyond the seating capacity of our current worship space, it is obvious that our parish will need a flexibility in the preferences of our parishioners regarding Mass attendance, along with the weekend Mass schedule.
One of the many reasons the clergy of SJN sees God’s hand in our Building a Legacy of Faith campaign is in our urgent need for a larger worship space. According to the law of the Church, priests may be allowed to celebrate three Masses on Sunday, in pastoral necessity. But with our present (small) church, Fr. Armando and I will need to preside at Masses beyond the limit set by liturgical law. But this is transitional: before you know it, we will be celebrating Sunday Masses in a worship space that will seat 300 persons more than our current church seats!
After the deacons and priests studied the Mass attendance records, and after we heard from Fr. Armando about the Mass attendance of our Latino parishioners, we came up with what we think is the only available schedule for SJN, during this transitional period. We did come up with a second schedule, for the sake of discussion. Our preferred schedule (a) is on the left; an alternate schedule (b) is on the right:
Proposed Effective Date: August 2/3
| Schedule A (preferred) | Schedule B | |
| Saturday | 3:30 - 4:30 PM Confessions 5:00 PM Vigil Mass 7:00 PM restored wedding time | 3:30 - 4:30 PM Confessions 5:00 PM Vigil Mass 7:00 PM restored wedding time |
| Sunday | 8:00 AM 9:30 AM 11:00 AM (main choir) 12:30 PM 2:00 PM (Spanish) 5:00 PM (Life Teen) 7:00 PM (Spanish) | 7:00 AM 8:30 AM 10:00 AM (main choir) 11:30 AM 1:00 PM (Spanish) 5:00 PM (Life Teen) 7:00 (Spanish) |
(B) After the meetings held with my brother deacons and priest, I met with the members of the SJN Liturgy Commission. This Commission is made up of the leaders of all the various liturgical ministries (lectors, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, musicians, ushers, sacristans, etc.) plus parishioners that simply love Catholic liturgy. I discussed the situation, reporting the attendance study and the discussion of our deacons and priests. I suggested the schedule preferred by the SJN clergy (schedule “a” above) but shared the alternate schedule (“b”); and I asked the members of the Commission to “think outside the box” and try and come up with their own proposal, granting the attendance records from 2007-2008 and the availability of two priests and a 535 seat worship space.
The members of the Liturgy Commission accepted the suggested “a” schedule unanimously. Though granting that our “7:30 AM Sunday morning crowd” will lament a later start on their day and recognizing that a 2 PM start for the first Mass in Spanish is awfully late for our Latino parishioners, the members of the Commission thought that this “a” schedule was the best transitional Mass schedule we could agree upon.
(C) The staff of SJN has been consulted in this discussion, and has agreed with the conclusions of the clergy and the members of the Liturgy Commission.
(D) After the collaborative work with the deacons and Fr. Armando and after the unanimous acceptance of the proposed new Mass schedule by the members of the Liturgy Commission and after agreement among our staff, I now turn to the parish at large, to each of you reading this. The preferred schedule outlined above (“a”) seems to be a good fit with the parish family of SJN. The leadership of the parish is in complete agreement with this new transitional Mass schedule; and I am hopeful that you will recognize the deliberate way this issue has been studied and will support this change, even though I recognize that any change in the Mass schedule is difficult. Please let me know what you think about this new transitional Mass schedule, by telephone, letter or e-mail ( This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. ).
Unless something comes to light from your comments that calls into question the rationale agreed upon by the clergy and lay leadership of our parish, this new transitional Mass schedule will begin on the first weekend of August (2-3 VIII).
AMDG
Msgr. David Talley
| < Prev | Next > |
|---|