Denver, Colo., Mar 19, 2020 / 04:51 pm (CNA).- The Hernon family just barely makes the cut for the latest coronavirus social distancing measures, which allow only 10 people or less to gather together.
Though Mike and Alicia have 10 children, two of them are married and no longer live at home. They still have eight children under their roof, ranging in age from 7-22.
And now, as Sunday approaches and Masses across the country are canceled, the Hernon family, who run a ministry called The Messy Family Project, are thinking about how they can keep Sunday as a holy day without the liturgical celebration of the Mass.
“My first thought is that this pandemic is Lent for the world,” Mike said.
“It’s an imposed sacrifice that we didn’t choose, but like Lent, it’s stripping us away from things of this world. And it gives us an opportunity to focus on what matters, our faith and our families. Not to make light of anything, but to see…this as a way for us to become more intentional in our family life.
On March 11, the World Health Organization officially declared the coronavirus outbreak a global pandemic. Two days later, announcements from Catholic dioceses in the United States started trickling in. Public Masses were suspended in order to stop the spread of the disease. By March 18, every Latin Catholic diocese in the United States had suspended public Masses.
The Hernons were able to attend Mass last Sunday, so this weekend will be their first Sunday without Mass during the coronavirus pandemic.
They said the new situation should encourage Catholic parents to be the spiritual leaders of their homes.
“I think sometimes parents, we rely on (our parish) to kind of help us celebrate Sunday. We’re like, ‘Oh, go to Mass, and then we’ll come home and just whatever. It’s just another day.’ So we were relying on Father, your pastor, to do Mass. Well now that you can’t do that, parents actually have to take that responsibility,” Alicia said.
Mike especially encouraged fathers to take the lead.
He said that on Sunday, their family plans to read the Mass readings for the day, and on to pray morning prayer from the Liturgy of the Hours. Mike said fathers could consider leading the family in a simple meditation on the Gospel or another scripture passage of the day.
“Just meditating and spending some time (in silence) as a family. And then discussing it and having a conversation, instead of a homily, but having a little bit of that type of discussion with the family. Particularly dads need to really take some leadership in the way that they lead a time of prayer on Sunday. It doesn’t have to be elaborate,” he said.
The Hernons also suggest a family examination of conscience, and a time for family members to apologize to each other if necessary.
“Everybody can modify based upon their kids, and what’s age appropriate, if they have older kids or younger kids,” Mike said. Alicia also encouraged dads to take the lead in celebrating Sunday.
“This is a great time for dads to step up and take that mantle that God has given them all along,” Alicia said.
The Hernons encouraged families to set aside the time for silence and family prayer, even if they are also planning on watching a televised Mass. They said younger children are likely to respond best to incorporating physical elements of prayer, such as candles or religious images, into their prayer time.
“Kids, but not even just kids, as people, we are so tangible. We are Catholics, we need physical things,” Alicia said.
“Make up a little altar, light candles, have a picture of Jesus, have a picture of the Blessed Mother. If you don’t have a statue or religious things, get them. Buy them on Amazon, immediately,” she said. “Include holy water in your ritual. Have everyone bless themselves.”
Alicia added that keeping Sundays holy should include not only prayer, but the way the rest of the day is lived out.
“If you look in the Catechism about how to celebrate Sunday, it doesn’t say just go to Mass. You have Mass, but then you also refrain from unnecessary work, take time to join with other families, take time to focus on each other,” she said.
Obviously, those things will look different in a world of social isolation, Mike and Alicia said, but it can include games and other forms of recreation, as well as special meals.
“You could make a maze out of your home, you could do a treasure hunt, you can get outside for goodness sake, we don’t have to stay inside,” Alicia said.
“You can still go on a hike. If there’s a lake nearby, you can go swimming, you can go to a beach, you can just get outside and do something with your family.”
The Hernons said they discussed a lot of ideas for how to spend this time of pandemic as a family on their latest podcast episode, and that they plan on coming up with a Sunday guide for prayer time that families can follow on their website.
Adam Barlett is also planning on making a guide to help families lead prayer in their homes on Sundays. Bartlett is the founder and president of Source and Summit, a new Catholic apostolate dedicated to helping parishes elevate the liturgy. He is also a husband and father to two girls, aged 13 and 9.
“Source and Summit exists to serve parishes fundamentally, but by extension to help all Catholics elevate liturgical prayer,” Bartlett told CNA. “So we found it kind of ironic that the moment we launched, parishes and diocese just started shutting down the public celebration of Mass. And so we felt kind of a obligation to respond in some way.”
To respond to canceled public Masses, Bartlett and his team at Source and Summit have begun building a website that can serve as a liturgical guide for families on Sundays during this time of canceled Masses, titled Keep the Lord’s Day.
The site will include a guide and texts of that Sunday’s Morning Prayer, as well as the Liturgy of the Word for Mass, and a prayer to make a spiritual communion. There will also be a musical component guiding families in liturgical chant.
“It’s a resource for Catholics to help them continue to pray the liturgy, and to unite themselves through the never ending prayer – the liturgy – from their homes when they can’t attend Mass at their parish.”
The Bartlett family started praying the Liturgy of the Hours this last week, as Colorado was one of the first states to announce that all Masses were suspended to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
“We realize that for a lot of people, the Liturgy of the Hours can be confusing or intimidating. It can be really difficult to navigate. And a lot of times people don’t know about it or if they’re even doing it correctly. So we thought we could put together a little resource for real liturgical prayer in the home for Sundays to help families unite themselves to this one never ending eternal prayer of the Church, which is a type of liturgy,” he said.
The Liturgy of the Hours are a set of prayers, including Psalms and readings from both the Old and New Testaments, that are prayed multiple times a day throughout the world by Catholic priests, nuns, and religious sisters and brothers, Bartlett said, but the Church also invites lay Catholics to pray the Hours as well.
“All of the lay faithful are invited to join in this prayer,” he said.
While watching a livestream Mass can be a place to start for families, Bartlett said he hopes Catholics will also consider praying the Liturgy of the Hours with their families, because of its sacramental and liturgical nature.
“As Catholics, our worship is sacramental… meaning that God communicates himself to us through physical things. And we’re able to worship and to pray not only in a purely spiritual way, but also in a physical way with our bodies, with our voices, with gesture, with things that engage all of our senses,” he said.
Mass, of course, uses all of these things, he added. Catholics sit, stand, speak, sing, listen, smell incense and taste the Eucharist.
“It engages all of our senses,” he said. “And this is the way that Christ chose to draw to himself and to unite us to himself in that, not only the spiritual way but the very real sacramental way.”
But if Catholics only participate in prayer through a screen for the next few months, they will miss out on the sacramentality and the liturgy of the Church, he said.
“That can be a little bit more of a passive engagement rather than a real physical participation in the liturgy itself,” he said.
Another reason he would encourage Catholics to pray the Liturgy of the Hours would be because it would feel set apart from the day-to-day activities, which, during a time of pandemic, will increasingly take place in front of a screen, he said.
“Part of the nature of liturgical prayer is that it’s intentionally set apart; and another way of saying that is that it’s sacred. We use sacred objects. It’s set apart from the ordinary aspects of our life,” he said.
“Now, being in our homes will kind of limit our ability to go into a beautiful church and into a sacred place for prayer. But if we think about watching the Mass in the same place where we watch Netflix, there’s a kind of challenge there, in that it’s not a time that we’re setting apart for the sacred,” he said.
“So really what we’re encouraging people to do, particularly on Sundays, on the Lord’s Day, is to create a kind of sacred space in their home for prayer and to engage in it themselves,” Bartlett added.
Fr. Ryan Hilderbrand, the pastor of St. Mary’s in Huntingburg, Indiana, is streaming and posting his Masses on his new YouTube channel. He said watching Mass on a livestream or on TV on Sundays can be a great start for families, but he also encouraged them to participate in “age-appropriate devotionals.”
“Watching a live stream is a great way to participate in the Mass if someone can’t attend. Actual graces are still present and can stir the heart to a deeper relationship with Jesus,” Hildebrand told CNA.
“However, it is clearly different from participating in Mass by one’s physical presence. Among other things, Mass is the reunion of Christ the Head with his Mystical Body, the Church. We are all sons and daughters of the Father, coming together as that one body in Jesus for Mass. Additionally, we are made members of one another at Mass – we carry one another’s burdens, offer support and prayer, and encourage one another in worshiping the Father,” he added.
Besides prayer and watching Mass, Hildebrand encouraged families to observe Sundays as a day of joy and rest by spending time together.
“For families with kids, they could follow the old rule of ‘spirituality, service, silliness’ – that is, pray together, do something constructive together, and have fun together,” he said.
Service might look different under social distancing, he added, but it could be cleaning out closets together or collecting toys and clothes for future donations.
As for silliness -“Have fun together! Watch a movie, play a board game, joust with pool noodles – what is important is that they do something as a family,” he said.
Calvin Mueller is the coordinator of rural parish evangelization at the Archdiocese of Omaha, which had Mass last weekend, but announced on Monday the “indefinite” suspension of public Masses and other sacraments with 10 or more people present.
That day, Mueller posted to his Facebook page a personalized “Mueller Family Pandemic Plan,” which included plans for worship and prayer, and asked his friends for feedback.
With three children under the age of 5, Mueller said planning a lot of structured prayer time is difficult. Their family plans to say a daily rosary, for example, but they will say only as many decades as they can “until our kids lose it,” he said.
As for Sundays, Mueller said the family plans on watching their local parish’s livestream Mass and making a spiritual communion. Mueller said he also wants to plan his family’s Sundays around three different areas: reverence of holy things, reverence of others, and experiencing the joy of Christ.
Even if a family does not stream Mass, Mueller said they could spend some time in silence and prayer with “engagement in scripture, making a spiritual communion, and the rosary.”
As for reverencing others, Mueller said he would encourage families to think about who they could reach out to either through phone calls or video chats on Sundays.
“That might be grandparents, or other loved ones, in order that you can experience community together,” Mueller said.
Mueller added that even though most restaurants and venues are closed, Sundays should not stop being days to experience the joy of the Lord. “That might mean baking a particular food, or serving a particular drink, or playing a game that you know is going to bring life to your family,” he said.
Ultimately, while this is an “unprecedented time” in the life of the modern Church, Mueller said he is viewing it as a gift that calls for an “unprecedented response” from Christians.
“I see this as a tremendous gift, to actually be able to slow down and reevaluate the sainthood that Christ is calling all of us to. And I’m grateful that people are recognizing the ephemeral pleasures that they’re used to…are not adequate for what the Lord has really made us for. So to have this time, to actually have that come to the light, I see it as a tremendous gift and my hope is that the Church, and ourselves as the Church, will seize this opportunity to fill the void.”
[…]
No Catholic in good standing can vote for any candidate who campaigns for the killing of unborn defenseless children.
Nor for a grossly immoral candidate who flaunts our constitutional form of government and has even waffled on pro life issues. A man who is dangerous and can’t be trusted. Friends we are in serious trouble!
It is sad and funny that Catholics criticize Trump on moral grounds. The most disgusting immoral President was the JFK and Biden is nor far behind in his lack of morals. JFK almost got us into WW3 and Biden has started 2 wars so far.
History credits JFK with getting us out of the cuban missile crisis with back door diplomacy through the work of Bobby Kennedy allowing Khrushchev to save face. I am no fan of the Kennedy family but this is a fact that we can’t ignore.
O my goodness, and how the bishops pandered to Hispanics by trashing Trump, having Mass at the wall with the press in tow, cozying up to Biden … only to find out Hispanics are as smart as most other Americans. Now, bishops, you’re out there on a limb. Hope you don’t land too hard and trash your miters. That’s right, you’ve squandered your teaching authority once again. And you wonder why regular Catholics no longer pay you any mind? And you’re going to find out soon enough the pay off for jumping on the BLM/George Floyd bandwagon last election cycle. You have it coming.
jpfhays, you put it so succinctly and accurately. Most of our bishops are feckless sycophants – followers of that Great Accommodationist, Francis I.
I’m guessing the US bishops are already aware of this but more & more Hispanics are Evangelical & Pentecostal & those are socially conservative folk.
Biden is a “Catholic president”?
Well then…
Hitler’s family was Catholic. So I guess that means Hitler was a Catholic fürher, eh?
I know, I know. It’s disrespectful — and not accurate — to compare Biden to Hitler.
You’re right. I’m sorry.
After all, Germany only murdered three or four dozens of millions of people during Hitler’s rule.
While Biden’s holocaust numbers in the many hundreds of millions around the world during his half century in office.
Recently, I heard a statement I found interesting: Democrats have not carried a majority of male voters (all males – white, black, Hispanic) since LBJ in 1964. My very limited research tends to support this as accurate. I’m willing to be corrected by the really smart CWR readers.
No REAL Catholic would choose to vote in the ’24 election.
Any Catholic who decides to vote this year is announcing to the world that their faith means less than nothing to them and politics are more important than Jesus. 😡
This message was brought to you by the Biden/Harris Campaign Committee.
🙂
“All that is necessary for evil to triumph, is for good men to do NOTHING.” If you fail to vote, you effectively join the crowd with blood on their hands.
Its like voting for a third party candidate who you know CANNOT win as away of virtue signaling. It steal votes from the better candidate, and effectively allows the side that lies and cheats to win.
Some choice. Most Americans do not want this choice, but here we are. Again and again, we are faced with the “lesser of two evils.”
the last person i want in the white house is that no good loser trump
hmmm…so i guess its ok for trump to fool around with porn stars and support abortion???
you people drive me crazy. trump belongs in prison, not the white house!
So, I guess it’s ok for Bill Clinton to harass multiple women and for Hillary to help him cover that up? I guess it’s ok for Andrew Cuomo to harass 14 women and counting? I guess it’s ok for Barack Obama to sow racial divisions in the country and support partial birth abortions? Is voting for a democrat really any type of morally sound alternative when you look at the facts?
Ideally, I prefer my politicians without porn stars. But I have yet to meet a person who is perfect and without weakness. In the final analysis, I am MORE concerned about how their POLICIES affect our country and our people. We are voting for a President, not a saint. Only the dimmest cant see that stirring up accusations about a persons sexual activity is simply a way to damage them politically. I would not vote for a political party like that with a gun to my head.
Answer honestly. What does more damage to more people? An open border, a refusal to enforce criminal laws, and a two tiered justice system, or a politician dating a porn star?
I prefer my presidents without porn stars too, LJ.
😁
But we take what we can get and there are only two viable options at the moment. One’s associated with porn stars, the other with cognitive decline.
Not that very long ago, Democratic elected officials like Joseph Biden DID vote for pro-life bills, and the Democratic Party was considered “the party of the little man (and what is littler than an embryo or fetus?!). But now the few pro-life Democrats who are strong enough in their soul to remain prolife, e.g., Rep. Dan Lipinski of Illinois, are basically hounded and hated out of office. The problem is that the basic concept of the “Republican” party is individual freedom–which means that there will still be plenty of pro-choice” Republicans. The only hope is to pray for more private citizens to recognize the scientific and spiritual reasons to be “pro-life” and demand that their elected officials of ANY political party support the right of the unborn to live! Voting Republican is no guarantee that pro-life laws will be passed and upheld. I do plan to vote for Pres. Trump at this time (not only because of pro-life issues but because he has a better grasp of what is necessary for a strong economy, and he is respected (or perhaps feared?!) by other world leaders. However, we still have a few more months for God to work a miracle!
Alex, for 500 points. Question: Who wrote the following:
“… it is my personal feeling that the legalization of abortion on demand is not in accordance with the value which our civilization places on human life.”
Answer “Who is Ted Kennedy” (1971)
Hard to believe but true: https://www.ncregister.com/blog/the-story-behind-kennedy-s-pro-life-letter
Thank you for sharing that article, Ron.
What a sad example of how we betray our faith for worldly success. I’d say betrayal of our convictions also, but that assumes a sincere conviction in the first place.
For every Ted Kennedy and Joe Biden there’s a lifetime of Catholic clergy who have enabled them to get to that place of moral error. At Judgement the shepherds will be held to a higher accountability than the sheep.
Happy Mothers (Mary and own mother) Month . Catholics who vote for Trump did not comprehend, imbibe and get well the Catholic values taught by their mothers. How could one vote for a narcissist, liar, cheat, misogynist, sexist, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, criminal defendant, who has no God but himself.
My mother had commonsense Deacon Dom & she taught me to make practical choices.
Based upon the performance of either candidate while they were in office, I’m choosing Trump. I base my vote on previous performance , not campaign hype.
Well, you supported the Clinton’s and B. Hussein Obama. What does that say about your own faith and values?
You are basing a lot of your accusations of Pres. Trump on a corrupt and ultra-liberal media’s slant. These folks lie through their teeth. I’m sure some of it is true, but…if you want an indication of how Pres. Trump lives in his private life, just take a look at his children, including his youngest son, Barron. These kids are amazing–they started working in their dad’s company when they were 16 and were required to work at every “job” to be able to understand what the employees do. After Pres. Trump was elected, Barron came under an attack by the “media”_-and Melania (his mom) promptly left the White House with her son and took him to a private place in NYC where the media couldn’t get at him. Pres. Trump had no objection. I would suggest that you read VP Mike Pence’s biography in which he discusses Pres. Trump in detail and for the most part, until the Jan. 6 debacle, is quite complimentary about Pres. Trump. Pence has been a devout Christian from his childhood–he grew up Catholic and converted to Evangelical Protestantism later in life–so he’s not one to stretch the truth or tell lies. And be wary about believing the media. One “story” about Pres. Trump that they haven’t reported is all the “small charities” that he has funded, including an amazing organization in NYC called Figure Skating In Harlem. In the beginning, the coach spent all her own money funding this excellent organization, which has a 99.9% high school graduation rate among the mainly minority girls who are members. Donald Trump heard about the organization (he was involved with re-building a NYC figure skating rink) and stepped in with a large donation. I don’t know if he is still involved, but at this point, Figure Skating in Harlem is supported by many A-list celebrities who also serve on the board (e.g., Al Roker). But it was Donald Trump who kept it alive in the beginning. You’ve never heard that, have you? Maybe Pres. Trump isn’t as bad as you think.
“criminal defendant”
I’m going to ignore the rest of what you spewed and focus on this.
You do dealize that being a defendant in a criminal case doesn’t mean that a person is a criminal, right? There’s a little thing called “presumption of innocence.”
And even in the cases of people convicted, there are also some who are wrongly convicted, and prosecutors who abuse the law to promote their own political agendas.
Happy Mother’s Day/Month. Those Catholics who vote for Trump must have failed to comprehend or imbibe the Catholic values taught by their mothers. How could they vote for a narcissist, liar, cheat, misogynist, racist, rapist, insurrectionist, criminal defendant, and who has no God but himself.
Most German voters in the early 1930’s didn’t think the Nazis were serious about all that extremist stuff, either. History has a way of repeating itself.
It seems to be doing that on our college campuses today, Marlene. Plus ca change…
To Deacon Dom, and some others in this comment section – even if she were alive, we are never going to have a Mother Theresa running for president. Trump gave us Supreme Court justices that overturned Roe and sent it back to the states. All of the national and state pro-life groups that I saw praised this at the time. So, going back to the states wasn’t as good as many of us hoped. Hardly Trump’s fault.
Given the choices that we have, I don’t see how anyone cannot see the difference between Trump and Biden, who is not only for abortion but wants to increase it with a national pro-abortion law. Biden, and his campaign manager have said that their key campaign issue is going to be a stand as the pro-abortion candidate.
If Trump does win, I believe that we will then be hearing from the bishops, calling out Trump by name, for trying to close the border to illegals.
The democrat party is the pro death party as evidenced by their platform which calls for the killing of unborn babies anytime, anyplace, for any reason, paid for by the government.
I get the impression that so many Catholics are so tied to the democrat party that they refuse to see moral realty, and that goes also for bishops, half of whom in my state are registered members of the party of death.
Bravo, Crusader!
The Democratic Party is indeed a death cult. They are in favor of:
Abortion, to the tune of a third of the children conceived in America for the past half century; open borders, over which deadly drugs are allowed to pour in unimpeded; the mutilation and sterilization of “trans” children without the consent of the parents; drug legalization; foreign aid for the nation that is the biggest supporter of terrorism in the world; some ten million illegal aliens, totally unvetted, being allowed into the country and receiving welfare and services while U.S. families struggle to survive; euthanasia — and so much more.
Catholics who vote for Democrats should look to their souls.
A Catholic would make a big mistake voting for the figre head in the White House or not voting at all. That Catholic would be contributing to the victory of a clear pro abortion candidate and party (I leave out the many other anti Christian and anti national positions they hold). With all his folds, DT is on our side; the other is not. DT has appointed more pro life judges than any president. He is pro life. The other is not. DT tries to save as many children as possible with his leaving abortion to the states, not the Feds. The other wants the Feds to control and push abortion. DT is against all the anti children policies the other holds from transgender to lgbtq plus, etc. Catholics, this is a no brainer decision. And by the way, with all his faults, see what a good bunch of boys DT has raised, who love his father. Compare with the present figure head and his children, one of whom he used to take showers with when she was a girl, as she has recollected in her diary, found in a house for drug addicts (she has drug and sexual promiscuity problems). Once more, folks, this is a no brainer at election time. Go and vote for the much better candidate.