Tomorrow, we return

Some of us, anyway.

When the government announced that churches would be allowed to return at 30% capacity, I thought 'No problem with that.  The Mass I attend would have to double in size to reach that.'  However, with the other regulations- 2 metre distancing, etc,- there is no way we can reach even 10% capacity, so a lot of people won't be able to attend.  We have set up a page for people to get tickets or register for Mass, but, for some reason, the secretary was concerned that visitors would take up all available space and crowd out parishioners, and therefore made the place to register very difficult to find on line until late yesterday.  I asked that a sign be put up in front of the church telling people that they need to register before attending Mass on Sunday. That suggestion was dismissed.  I have a strong feeling this will not go well.

I have been wondering what effect the quarantine will have on us Catholics.  I had hoped, back at the beginning, that it would draw more attention among Catholics to what we were  missing, how fragile the ability to go to Mass every Sunday is, and perhaps make strengthen their attachment to the Mass.  I imagine it has had that effect on some,  but now I am wondering if it will have the opposite affect on others- they didn't miss it, and found they liked sleeping in on Sunday.  If the Sunday obligation can be dismissed and dispensed with, perhaps it was never that much of an obligation to begin with, they may think.  On the whole, I believe this is another situation where we 'are being sifted like wheat.'

At any rate, my attendance at Mass for tomorrow and for perhaps a little while afterwards is fairly secure: I have been asked to sing. This puts me in an interesting position as there will be no congregational singing, so only the introit, communion and recessional shall be sung solo, by me.  (You may remember the story of the choir in the States that ignore quarantine and held a choir practice, and then half the members of the choir came down with covid-19 and a significant number died?  Because of that, singing is listed as a high risk activity. )  So the fact that I will be going solo opens some interesting possibilities for me.  I no longer have to stick to the CBW III.  I may sing whatever I want.  This makes me want to drum the ends of my fingers together like some Bond villain contemplating his latest evil plot.  However, I should use my power for Good and not Evil, and bitter experience has taught me that there are few ways to split a congregation faster than to fiddle with the music.  And this is the first week back.  There won't be many coming, and I don't want those who do come to leave wishing they had been among those who could not attend.  So I will continue doing the communion proper, but not the full propers.  Yet.  Also, I can use something other than the terrible modified lyrics in the hymnal.  One of the hymns I will be doing tomorrow was modified to be inclusive, and in so doing they put in a transitive clause where an intransitive one was required. Dreadful not only in content, but in grammar as well.  I will be using the unmodified words instead.