St. Francis de Sales Church

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Note from Fr. Raul 
MAY 22, 2020
 
Good afternoon dear friends! I hope you are doing well. There is a lot of stuff going on. We are trying to make this process easy and safe for all. 

As you have seen in the news or in the diocese web site, our bishops are asking us to open “if we are ready” by the last weekend of May, that’s the weekend of Pentecost.
We are getting the church floor marked and putting signs up so it is clear how people should come in and out, the social distancing and bullet points of the protocol. It is something new for all of us, but we need the signs until we get the instructions down. It might look like a kindergarten classroom, but it’s better than not having anything. Of course the MOST IMPORTANT part is that if you don’t feel safe, and or feel sick, please, please stay at home. It is for the safety of all.

The Protocol letter was mailed out yesterday. It is posted here on our website with the amendments. You may have received them today or the beginning of next week. We ask you to pay close attention. In order to open and celebrate the Masses, people MUST follow the protocols without exceptions.

** Please, allow extra time to do this process, we encourage you to come earlier so we may seat people before Mass starts. I will start on the scheduled time. We will close doors when Mass starts or when we have filled to our capacity.

• You must wear your mask all the time and in order to be admitted you have to bring it. We don’t have extra Masks here. NO MASK, NO ADMISSION.
•  As you arrive, your temperature will be taken with a touchless thermometer without exceptions.
• You will be escorted by an usher, keeping the social distance, IN  and OUT
• Follow the signs on the floor. 

• Green color arrow tape: ENTER
• Orange color arrow tape: EXIT
• White color dots tape: Social distance (6’)

• There are no books or missals. No toys or things for kids allowed.
• No shaking of hands during the sign of peace.
• The communion response will be done as a group. No one-on-one responses are required during communion.
• The only form of receiving communion will be in the hand
•  Wait to be escorted OUT by an usher.

 
WHEN DO WE START?
We will be starting the weekend of MAY 30-31, 2020. This first weekend we will having the regular Masses we have been saying. SATURDAY 5:00PM and SUNDAY 10:00 AM in English, and Sunday 12 NOON in Spanish. Being the first weekend we want to know if the plan we have works. We hope you will be patient. This is new for us too. 

THEN
The weekend of JUNE 6-7, 2020. We add the 8:00 AM on SUNDAYS here at St. Francis until we are able to go back to St. John the Baptist in Georgetown. So we will be providing more opportunities for you to come with less traffic.

ALSO,
On JUNE 1^ST, WEEKDAY MASSES are going to be held at St. Francis from MONDAY – THURSDAY at 8:00 AM so if you don’t want to come on the weekends you can come during the week. There will be less people. MASS in SPANISH will be on TUESDAYS at 7:00 PM.

ALL MASSES WILL CONTINUE LIVE STREAMING excluding SUNDAYS 8AM.

MINISTERS
Every weekend for each Mass we need:
TWO GREETERS:    They will take the temperature at the entrance.
FOUR USHERS:       They will escort people IN and OUT 
ONE READER:         SHE/HE will do the announcement and Mass readings
* On the weekdays I will be doing the escorting knowing there won’t be the amount of people like the weekend Masses.
** We TRULY APPRECIATE your willingness to HELP US. Please if there is a specific time you are planning to come and want to help, call the office or email us.   We will schedule you.
*** Right now, we are not able to use the Parish Center for overflow, because the floor is under construction. As soon as we are able to use it, we let you know.
Again thank you so much for your patience. We are here to serve you. On behalf of our staff we want to say thank you so much for your spiritual and financial support. May the Lord continue blessing you. I hope to start seeing you again in our worship space.
Peace, Fr. Raul

May 20, 2020
 
Dear Parishioners:  
 
Christ is risen!  Alleluia, Alleluia!
            
What a long journey we have had, and continue having with the COVID-19 pandemic. It makes it more difficult when we know that it is out of our control. That we can just trust in what our political leaders and church leaders are guiding us. 
 
Yes, we might have different opinions on the way this is being handled, but this cannot get into our nerves, because whatever we think at this point, we have to follow what is put in front of to us to follow.  To the end we are learning we have to be more careful and conscious of our health and what we do. Perhaps, value more what we have, specially our family, our jobs, our housing, and why not even our neighbor who probably we didn’t pay attention to before.
 
The most, in my opinion, has been not being able to be at the Church communal celebrations. Not being able to partake of the Eucharist, the Body and Blood of our Lord as we are used to. Especially during this difficult time when we need more of our Lord for strength. Yes, we feel that it is important for us to receive the Lord sacramentally. The Church has provided a beautiful prayer for Spiritual communion. Keep in mind there has been in history, saints who had not been able to receive the sacred communion as often as we do but their lives were just a living sacrament. I guess this is a good time for you and for me to value more what we celebrate and consume: a better transformation of our Christian life and meditating how I can received Bread for the Journey more an in state of grace. 

Furthermore, these weeks we have been able to think out of the box. It didn’t happen last year when the roof collapsed or when we needed to cancel Masses because of the weather. I have being able to Live-Stream daily Masses and weekend Masses. It just moved from the rectory to have the weekend Masses in the church building. Now we can accommodate more chairs with the social distance in the social hall and project the live Masses in the big screen and Live-stream in Facebook and Website at the same time. Being able to Live-Stream funeral Masses.
 
We know that the Lord will continue walking with us all. We know that this one day will be over, and this will become part of history, our history. A history that we never, never thought about being part of. As many things our nation, our Church, our family and every individual have gone through and we have conquered. With faith in the risen Lord we will conquer again!
 
I just ask you to pay close attention to the guidelines or protocols we are going to implement once we come back to our church building. These guidelines are in line with what our bishop and health department (civil) are requiring.  We want you to have it at hand before we get the okay to open. This is for your safety and the safety of all. And most of all, please use COMMON SENSE if you feel sick and/or have being around people who you know have being in contact with this illness just stay home. 
 
As bishop’s protocol letter says, if I, as the priest, feels sick I will cancel Masses and perhaps I can Live-Stream them from home, if I feel I can do it. So be patient if this happens I’m a human being too, not an angel yet.
 
Finally if you have a questions please don’t hesitate to call us. We are here to help you and serve you. We are together in this situation, but let us suffer with hope, hope doesn’t disappoint us, as Paul reminds us “because the love of God has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given to us.” (Rom. 5:5).
 
Blessings, Fr. Raul!

UPDATES TO PROTOCOLS

1. Fr. Raul will not wear mask during Mass however, when distributing communion he will be wearing a mask.

2. VOLUNTEERS NEEDED:  We will need volunteers to assist with Mass:  4-ushers; 2-greeters; 1-reader; 1-accompanist; 1-cantor; NO Eucharistic ministers; NO altar servers; NO Sacristans. PLEASE VOLUNTEER to Fr. Raul for scheduling & training in the new protocols.

3. The 8:00AM Sunday Mass will be held at St Francis to avoid the disinfecting process at St Johns.  Therefore, the schedule of Mass for the week at St Francis de Sales are: 

4. The Communion Response: “The Body of Christ… Amen” will be done right after the Spiritual Communion prayer and before Fr. Raul goes down to distribute. There won’t be dialogue during distribution. 

5. OFFERTORY will not be taken at Mass, again to avoid people touching.  Offertory baskets will be placed at the Sanctuary access for you to place your offertory within it when entering or exiting.  Envelopes for St Johns will be returned to St Johns Church.  Thank you!

6. PLEASE WATCH THE WEB SITE FOR FURTHER UPDATES AS THE BISHOPS AND GOVERNOR’S OFFICE DEVELOP GUIDELINES FOR RE-OPENING.  www.stfrancismhd.org  While on the web site, you may want to consider giving your offertory using the CREDIT CARD or PAY PAL giving both of which are available on the web site.  Again, St Johns Parishioner donations will be forwarded to St Johns.

Need someone to talk to? Call St. Gianna's Maternity Home at 1 (877) 701-3077, 
or
Women's Care Center (formerly FirstChoice Clinic) at
1 (888) 237-6530.

At the family's request, the date for Cleola Sauter's funeral has been changed. The Mass of Christian Burial for Cleola Sauter, 1940 - 2020, will now be held Friday, June 5, at the church at 2 pm. Visitation will be held one hour prior with social distancing in effect.

https://virtualadoration.home.blog/

http://www.imissal.com

St. Francis is purchasing Zoom software in order to hold virtual meetings. If your group needs to meet, please let Swede in the office know.

Once again the Father Raul email scam has reared its head. Father will never contact you by email or other means to ask you to buy him anything or to do him a "favor." If you receive one of these emails, please delete it.