Plans for Sacraments and Church opening during the Pandemic

Fr Dominic
Parish Priest

Permission has now come through for us to have funerals, baptisms, weddings and First Holy Communions in church, but with restrictions. Funerals, baptisms and wedding can go ahead with 30 people social distancing, sanitising, one-way systems in operation and a record kept of those attending for NHS Track and Trace.

In an effort to sort out the First Holy Communions we have set up a weekend in August and will try to get as many as are available to to celebrate the sacrament at this time. On that weekend we will have six Masses specifically for the Communions. We would like to have ten candidates at one time, each with eight guests. As we have the facility for live streaming we will record each service and they can be downloaded. As, inevitably, some people will be away we schedule a September date to make sure that everybody will receive the sacrament. Sadly there cannot be any music and as we must abide by the new rules from the diocese the masses will be shorter.

At the moment we are not using Ss John Fisher and Thomas More in Rossington Avenue as we have no live streaming. But as soon as restrictions ease we will be back there for our Sunday Masses, baptisms, weddings and funerals. I know many of you miss being at your parish church but these are strange times and we really need to get the maximum number of people being able to, at least, watch the Mass, especially those who cannot leave their homes. I urge all of us to follow the guidelines and try to keep this Virus away from our families and community.

(Photo: © Mazur/cbcew.org.uk)