New protocols came down today from the Archdiocese following the increased restrictions introduced by the Province. The memo can be read here.
The news reports today that starting tomorrow, September 18th, the Prairie Mountain Health Region will return to the “Yellow” order of Covid precautions, which means parishioners are no longer obliged to wear facemasks. Good news.
For the last two months, if one wanted to attend the Sunday 9:30am Mass in Ste Rose du Lac one needed first to receive an invitation. Since the introduction of the Phase 4 Guidelines by the Province of Manitoba last week, invitations are no longer required.
The Phase 4 guidelines allow faith-based gatherings of up to 30% of room capacity; since Ste Rose Church has seating for at least 350 persons, this allows us to presently host congregations of up to 105. That is a larger number of persons than came to a typical Sunday liturgy in pre-Covid times. Thus unless we see an unanticipated increase in demand for the Sunday liturgy, for the time being anyone who wants to come to Sunday Mass is free to come.
If you prefer a Lord’s Day Mass with less people present, consider attending either the Saturday 5:00 Mass in Ste Rose or the Saturday 7:30 Mass in Laurier. Attendance at those two liturgies is typically under 30 persons.
Now that the Province of Manitoba is allowing 50 persons to assemble indoors, it no longer seems necessary for me to send out invitations to persons assigned to the Saturday 5pm mass—in pre-COVID times we never had nearly that many come Saturday nights. Feel free to come every week.
Sunday morning 9:30am Mass will still be by invitation. Let’s pray that the Province raises the cap to 80.
I would discourage jumping between Masses; if you have signed up for Saturday night, come Saturday nights, and if you have signed up for Sunday morning, come Sunday mornings. Otherwise our ability to keep track of congregation size will become overly complicated. Thanks!