When I was a missionary back in the 1990, which seems so long ago, I remember that many times, we would have to be very creative. We would have to turn to methods that we never used before or we would have to bring old methods to a new life. When I was in Ecuador for three years, the people in the villages we served did not have mail service, they did not have telephones or computers or televisions, many did not even have electricity or running water, and there were not even roads that led to many of the villages. Many of the over one hundred villages that we served out of our mission site did not have mass even once a year. We had to rely on the catechists of the village to keep the faith going. To get to them, I had to the villages, I had to travel by canoe or hike through the jungle, clearing brush with a machete. We missionaries did the best we could with what we had, but as I mentioned, we had to be creative.
Before we streamed the mass on Facebook Live a couple of weekends ago in the main church, I had never done that before in my almost 12 years as a priest. We learned that with the echo in the church, using the chapel would be a much better option. So with an iphone and with a microphone we purchased on Amazon, we have been streaming mass and other devotions daily to you. We are now going to be sending you Flocknote emails daily, with messages, notes of encouragement, or faith reflections. We are going to try to reach out to you in many different ways. If you have a suggestion to how we as a parish can better reach out to you, please let us know.
I also want to mention that our office hours are not going to be as regular now at the parish. I am still going to be working downtown at the chancery office most days of the week with my duties as Vicar General, but the parish office staff here at St Jude is going to be doing a lot from home. However, we are still going to be able to answer the office phone and we are still going to be able to retrieve messages from the office phone on a timely basis. A lot of us are going to have to adapt to this new reality, trying to isolate ourselves more at home and keep ourselves safe. I understand the risks we all take. Some of us are more vulnerable than other due to our age or our health situation. We are St Jude are doing our best to protect ourselves and the community.
I want to thank all of you as well who are continuing to make sure we get your contributions each well. We parishes still have our expenses to pay, so getting your contributions is still very important to us. I as your pastor am so thankful for the faithfulness of this parish. I am so glad I am pastor here - the is no other parish I would rather be. We have the on-line giving option for you to give you contribution. You can do that thorough our website. Just go to the menu at the top of our website, hit “about”, and then hit “on-line giving.” If you are having trouble setting up your on-line contribution, just call Kelly McGregor at the office, and she will be glad to help you. You can give by a bank draft or by sending your contribution through regular mail. You can also drop off your contribution to parish through a new drop box we have at the entrance to our parish office.
We will continue to have Masses daily on Facebook Live and then they will later be posted to our Youtube page. We are going to have Adoration at 1:00 pm this Sunday, March 29 and on Palm Sunday, April 3, both streaming on Facebook Live and on campus through a “drive in” Adoration. We will be streaming all of our Easter and Holy Week liturgies as well.
My love, prayers, and encouragement go out to all of you.
Blessings,
Father Lincoln
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