From Fr Greg's Pew: 26th April

Hi everyone, and thanks for all your correspondence of late. We are trying our best to 'get the word out' through the live streaming, so it is nice to get a bit of feedback as well.

If, like me, you've been watching the news of late, and seen not just a 'flattening of the curve' but hopeful signs the crisis is being contained, then I guess you will also be wondering, "So, when can we go back to Church"? The short answer is," Well, we don't exactly know!" Having next to no mystical abilities and professing very limited capacities to predict anything more than the sun coming up these days, so much has changed, we just have to wait patiently, and get on with life as best as we can. My hope is that in the near future we will be allowed to open the Churches for private prayer, but it seems public gatherings of any sort are a long way off.

In the meantime, we are continuing our daily live streaming of masses and the offer of sacraments individually whenever possible, especially the anointing of the sick. Our intrepid Frs. Alfredo and Daniele are happy to make pastoral visits and pass on sacraments to you, even if they don't venture indoors. It is nowhere near as good as the real thing; it is simply the only feasible option open to us right now. Let the Parish Office know if there is anything we can do for you.


The Catholic Weekly quoted Pope Francis' concern last Sunday about the 'false sense of Church' that comes with the live streaming Masses. The headline was "Faith via media consumption is “not the Church”. He makes a good point which is worth reflecting upon. This is what they reported:


Pope Francis said the forced isolation devised to stop the pandemic presented the danger of people living the faith only for themselves — detached from the sacraments, the Church and the people of God. Online Masses and spiritual communion do not represent the Church, he said in his homily at his morning Mass in the chapel of his residence on 17 April. “This is the Church in a difficult situation that the Lord is allowing, but the ideal of the Church is always with the people and with the sacraments — always,” Pope Francis said.

By broadcasting his morning Mass, for example, people are in communion, but they are not “together,” he said. The very small number of people present at his daily morning Mass will receive the Eucharist, he said, but not the people watching online who will only have “spiritual Communion”. “This is not the Church,” Pope Francis said. People are living this “familiarity with the Lord” apart from each other in order to “get out of the tunnel, not to stay in it.”

Pope Francis said the forced isolation devised to stop the pandemic was presenting the danger of people living the faith only for themselves — detached from the sacraments, the Church and the people of God. Online Masses and spiritual communion do not represent the Church, he said in his homily at his morning Mass in the chapel of his residence on 17 April. “This is the Church in a difficult situation that the Lord is allowing, but the ideal of the Church is always with the people and with the sacraments — always,” Pope Francis said.

The pope said it was thanks to an unnamed bishop who “scolded him” and made him think more deeply about the danger of celebrating Mass without the presence and participation of the general public. He said the bishop wrote to him before Easter when it was announced Mass would be celebrated in an "empty" St. Peter's Basilica. He said the bishop questioned the decision and asked, when “St Peter’s is so big, why not put 30 people at least so people can be seen” in the congregation?

The pope said that at first he didn’t understand what this bishop was trying to get at, but then they spoke and the bishop told him to be careful to not make the Church, the sacraments and the people of God something that is only experienced or distributed online. “The Church, the sacraments and the people of God are concrete,” the pope said. The faithful’s relationship with God must also stay concrete, as the apostles lived it, as a community and with the people of God, not lived in a selfish way as individuals or lived in a “viral” way that is spread only online. 

The full article can be found here: https://www.catholicweekly.com.au/pope-warns-of-danger-in-online-masses/


Please don't forget to get your Project Compassion boxes and envelopes back to us at the Parish Office ASAP. We are open Mon - Fri, 8.30 am to 4 pm.



And I will leave it at that for this week. God bless, and take care of yourselves - and each other!

Fr Greg

Fr Greg Morgan FMVD is the Parish Priest at Ryde Gladesville Catholic Parish.