Dear Members of Family #15:
One of the more difficult steps in the Road to Renewal is the requirement that we reduce our Mass schedule to ensure that the priests of the family do not regularly celebrate more than three Masses per weekend. This task was the first action item of the Liturgy pillar, which consists of parishioners from each parish community.
WEEKEND MASSES
Currently our family has 16 Masses on the weekend. With 4 priests currently assigned to our family, we must reduce the number of Masses to 12. The math is easy enough. We need to reduce the schedule by 4 Masses, we have 4 parishes, thus, each parish needs to remove one Mass from their weekend schedule.
While eliminating a Mass from a schedule is difficult and painful for all involved, the Liturgy Pillar members made recommendations as to which Masses their respective parishes would prefer to eliminate. After reflection on their discussion, I have decided that the following Masses are going to be removed from the schedule effective Saturday, September 2, 2023: Our Lady of Peace will eliminate the 6:30 AM Sunday Mass, Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary will eliminate the Noon Sunday Mass, and St. Mary’s will eliminate the 6 PM Sunday Mass. St. Teresa of Avila will be combining their 8 AM and 10:15 AM Masses into one Sunday Mass at 9 AM. In addition, St. Mary’s will be shifting two of their Sunday morning Masses back to their pre-COVID times. St. Mary’s Sunday morning Masses will be at 7:30 AM, 9:00 AM, and 11:00 AM.
This information will be available in future bulletins and on our websites.
WEEKDAY MASSES
We are making some adjustments to the daily Mass schedule as well. When St. Mary’s had a pastor and parochial vicar assigned to the parish, there were two daily Mass. Because this is no longer the case, and because it is unlikely to be the case for the foreseeable future, we are indefinitely suspending the 7 AM weekday morning Mass. We will continue to have a 9 AM morning Mass and the school Mass will continue to be on Friday at 9:00 AM.
Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary’s daily Mass will move from 9 AM to 8 AM, except for Tuesday, which will remain at 9 AM to accommodate the school Mass. This change was made so that one priest could, if necessary, cover both Nativity and St. Mary’s daily Masses.
Our Lady of Peace’s 6:30 AM Mass on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday will be removed from the schedule. The 8:00 AM Mass on Monday through Thursday and 6:30 AM Mass on Friday will remain on the daily Mass schedule for Our Lady of Peace.
St. Teresa’s daily Mass schedule will remain the same for now.
Once again, this new schedule goes into effect on Saturday, September 2, 2023.
Mary, Mother of God, pray for us. St. Teresa of Avila, pray for us.
AMDG,
Fr. Tom Mahoney
Pastor
