Weekly Letter from the Pastor

Dear Fellow Parishioners of St. Benedict:

This is going to be a most unusual Holy Week, and celebration of the Sacred Triduum. The sense of isolation and loss of the experience of the assembled faithful will only serve to highlight the sense of isolation, desolation, and emptiness felt by the disciples, and indeed by Jesus himself, during that fateful Passover almost 2000 years ago.

Clearly we are inviting you all to “attend” our Holy Week services on-line and we are doing our best to make sure that they are as solemn, festive, and meaningful as they would be had you been here in person to participate.

The celebration of the Chrism Mass, where the bishop consecrates the oils for sacramental celebration and the priests renew their promises, has been postponed from the Monday of Holy Week until a date to be announced. We will publish that when available.

As there are no Masses on Thursday, Friday and Saturday mornings of Holy Week, we will live-stream the celebration of Morning Prayer instead. We are embedding the words to the Psalms and Canticles onto the broadcast so that you can pray along with us.

This bulletin contains those prayers as well. So if you are so inclined and have the ability to do so, you can download and print this bulletin to follow along.Next week, in the Easter bulletin, we will publish the readings for Palm Sunday and the Masses and Rites of the Triduum.

So yes, sounds strange, but you will have the Easter bulletin available online before Palm Sunday.

We will announce Mass times for the Triduum next week.

Stay safe, and pray for all who are ill,
Fr. Garry