Chicago, Ill., Mar 16, 2020 / 03:00 pm (CNA).- With public Masses suspended in many U.S. dioceses due to the outbreak of COVID-19, many bishops and pastors have suggested that Catholics can benefit from increased personal prayer, and watching a live broadcast of Mass while making a spiritual communion from home.
Fr. Dan Folwaczny, associate pastor at St. Norbert and Our Lady of the Brook Parish in Northbrook, IL, told CNA that watching Mass online or on tv is one way for Catholics to stay connected with the parish and the Church, even if they cannot gather together.
Folwaczny’s parish decided to begin livestreaming Mass after the Archdiocese of Chicago suspended public liturgies.
Celebrating Mass in a near empty room is “definitely kind of strange,” Folwaczny told CNA on Monday, March 16.
“Normally, when you are saying the prayers, it’s very easy to look out over the congregation and see who’s there and you know, what comes to mind,” he said, explaining that being able to see the assembly helps to remind him of the circumstances of individual parishioners and remember them in his prayers.
While churches are closed for the time being, Fr. Folwaczny echoed the encouragement of many priests and bishops for the faithful to tune into Mass if possible, and to make a spiritual communion.
A spiritual communion, he explained, “is a way for us to say, okay, whatever the reason is, I can’t receive communion at this moment.”
“But what happens at communion? We enter into this deep relationship, this presence of the grace of Jesus Christ and in the Eucharist in particular, His body and soul and divinity. And so as Catholics, we want that. We want that deep communion with our God. But again, it’s not always possible,” he said.
When making a spiritual communion, the person “asks God in prayer in those moments when He knows that this thing is not possible for us at this time, to still come into our hearts at least spiritually, to come into our lives, to continue to fill us with the grace that we need to be sustained, even though we can’t receive the Eucharist at this time,” Folwaczny explained.
For most of the Church’s history–until the early 20th century–Catholics did not habitually receive the Eucharist every Sunday. Folwaczny told CNA that he hopes this uncertain time of suspended Masses and decreased physical access to the sacraments will help Catholics “enter into a deeper solidarity with those around the world” who still lack access to regular Masses, either because of the remoteness of where they live, a shortage of priests, or the threat of violence.
Fr. Folwaczny said that Catholics should still remember to keep the Sabbath holy even though there may be no chance to physically attend a Mass.
“Set aside time on Sunday or Saturday evening to go through the readings for the day, to try and pray together as a family, or if they don’t have others living with them, to pray on their own,” he said.
“The hope is that with this access now to live streaming, that it’s a way too that people can hear from their own pastors and their own priests. And I think that’s something that still matters to your average parishioner, that they can still feel a sense of connection.”
If your parish is not live-streaming Mass, here are five places Mass can be streamed or watched, in a variety of time zones, languages, and rites:
EWTN
EWTN’s YouTube Channel contains videos of nearly all of the television channel’s programming, including daily and Sunday Masses. It can be found here.
LiveMass.net
LiveMass.net is an apostolate of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), and the website streams the Tridentine Mass (also known as the extraordinary form) five times each weekday and eight times each Sunday. In addition to Masses, the website also occasionally streams compline, vespers, and a Holy Hour. An exact schedule can be found on the website.
Catholic Information Center
The Catholic Information Center, an apostolate of the Opus Dei located in Washington, D.C., will be streaming daily Mass, as well as a rosary and Eucharistic adoration, each weekday on their website, YouTube, Facebook, and Twitter, starting at 9:30 a.m. EDT. Click here for their YouTube channel.
Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels
The Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, the seat of the Archbishop of Los Angeles, streams Mass live in both English and Spanish on Sundays, and in English throughout the week. Past Masses are then uploaded to the cathedral’s YouTube channel.
Archdiocese of Chicago
Due to the threat of COVID-19, the Archdiocese of Chicago announced that daily Mass from St. Joseph’s Chapel will be streamed each day starting March 17. Sunday Mass is streamed in English, Spanish, and Polish on the archdiocese’s website.
[…]
The next Pope? Maybe.
“Broglio pointed out that [Cardinal] Tagle knows the U.S. well . . .”
We can only hope that the cardinal’s understanding and appreciation exceeds those of his boss.
exceed
Something to watch…
Tagle might well be totally Eucharistic, no reason to doubt this, and yet in the past he has been interpreted as the most likely Francis II on the papabile list, except for his possibly disqualifying young age (71 in June).
ON THE ONE HAND:
“…when it comes to popular causes, Cardinal Tagle has shown himself to be a clear and vocal advocate. This is especially true of issues such as ecology, seen most recently in his active participation in the Pachamama ritual in the Vatican Gardens. Along with his ambiguous statements about the goodness of all religions, these factors raise questions about what Tagle believes is the essence of the gospel. His appointment as prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples and elevation to the rank of cardinal-bishop nevertheless place Tagle in a leading position for the papacy if voting cardinals desire continuity with Francis’ pontificate” (final words in the detailed and documented Tagle report and summary (one of 19 in Edward Pentin, editor, “The Next Pope: The Leading Cardinal Candidates,” Sophia Institute Press, 2020, p. 584).
ON THE OTHER HAND:
Tagle possibly offers a welcome contrast to Pope Francis’ stale caricature about American “conservatives” and now to drooling journalists that they are “suicidal”, Sunday May 20: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2024/05/16/pope-francis-says-conservative-critics-have-a-suicidal-attitude/
This from Cardinal Tagle:
“Let me address the journalists. I don’t think it is helpful to label people. Labeling people as progressive, as conservative, as traditionalists, may hinder a full listening to them. If we have decided already in our minds, ‘this person is traditionalist,’ whatever the person says, you or we, will always say, “Ah, traditionalist.” Or if the person says something that does not sound traditionalist, we change the label–‘Ah, he’s not a traditionalist, he’s a progressive” (p. 575, fn. October 2014).
OR, as an unambiguously Eucharistic cardinal, is Tagle nevertheless just one bipolar step in our incoherent failure to do both ressourcement (of the Source) and aggiornamento (engagement in/not of the world): as in “one step to the right, two steps to the left”?
While synodally “walking together,” how to both walk and chew gum at the same time?