“Ordinary Time” This year’s time of transition from Easter Season to Ordinary Time has more meaning for us than in yearspast! As many of you will realize even before readingthis note, current conditions regarding the Covid 19 Pandemic allow us to take steps forward into moreordinary times.
Consistent with public health guidelines andrequirements and with the directives provided by
Bishop McManus and our Diocesan Office for Worship, we are able to modify many of the
precautions that we have had to embrace to protectourselves and to protect each other. A small portionof the pews in our church still will be marked with bluetape for use by those who have not been vaccinated or who wish still to remain at a safer distance for anyreason. Processions, singing, and the use of the holy water fonts and worship books and hymnals is now
restored. If you wish, you may take a copy of whatwe use here at St. Peter’s with you, and bring it withyou as you come and go. Receiving Communion from the Cup will not be restored until statistics provided by the CDC make it safe to do so. Offering the Sign of Peace through some gesture of physical contact is still discouraged except among members of your own family or household who are present.
I have, in fact, received both doses of the Moderna Vaccine, and I enjoy good health. Therefore I will begin to be among you without a mask this weekend.The Processional and Recessional Hymns will find me in the gathering space once again. We have been very thoughtful about our care and concern for one another to date. Be thoughtful and choose wisely, that we might do so still...At the heart of this Feast and Mystery of the Holy Trinity is Love and
Communion...in the Triune God, between God and us, and among us by God’s grace.
The challenges of recent months and in time still to come do not diminish this, but rather call upon and strengthen it!
Fr. Tom