Father Dave answers questions about practicing our faith while unable to attend Mass in person in light of the coronavirus pandemic.
Susan asks, “How do we hold our faith together without going to church?” Father Dave responds, “At first, churches would be open for people to wander in and have a place to pray, but not for public Mass. And I think a lot of dioceses have even scaled back since then. Now, many of our churches are literally closed. So here we are in a situation that most of us are not used to in our lifetime because of what we’re going through.”
“A lot of you participate in a perpetual adoration, 24 hour adoration of the Blessed Sacrament … If you’re having a bad day and you’re driving down the road, you can just stop in. We get very used to and comfortable with some of these niceties, but we’re kind of being thrown back because of this virus into a time that the Church certainly hasn’t experienced in her history.”
“I have seen over the last several days so many people offering great suggestions on the internet as to what we might do. It’s helpful for us to be reminded that our relationship with God is not restricted to the square footage of a church, or those hours on Sunday that we go to Mass, or the time that we’ve signed up for adoration … God is in all things and present to us in every moment of our everyday life.”
Father Dave offers a reminder that God is always with us, “God is with you. Saint Ignatius tried to teach us to find God in all things. I think that will help us carry through some of this desert time that we’re going through without being able to go to church. Some other more practical things are devotionals … A Magnificat is one of the most popular versions and it has more than just daily Mass readings. They have morning and evening prayer and reflections about the saints. We also have a resource section up on Bustedhalo.com.”
Father Dave also responds to another question about whether or not watching Mass online fulfills our Sunday obligation. He explains that while watching Mass online does not fulfill our Sunday obligation, we have been released from that obligation for the time being, but it is still important to keep Sundays holy, and watching Mass will help us to be spiritually fed.
To watch the Facebook Live video where Father Dave addresses these questions in their entirety, click here.