As many of you are aware, one casualty of the lock-down process at the parish was the missalettes and other shared materials from the pews, removed since they were possible areas of COVID-19 infection and transmission. 

With the form sitting on my desk for several weeks, I had been delaying the decision to renew, discontinue or change the parish subscription of missalettes for the 2021 liturgical year (which begins at the end of November). Since it appears that - at least, as of this writing - there is no discernible date when we will be once again be able use such communal resources, I have chosen to severely cut back our order of missalette and music materials. It is now only at a very bare minimum so that we can preserve our parish license permitting use of liturgical music for live-streaming purposes while avoiding the risk of purchasing several hundred missalettes that we may never be able to use. For those who relied upon such worship aids, this poses a problem. 

Going forward, it will be necessary to have privately-owned missal/missalettes that you bring and take home with you. Several companies offer such materials, in the form of personal missals (books which are reusable from year-to-year with Mass prayers and readings; some drawbacks are that they can be a bit expensive and also challenging to know what page to turn to - they often have several ribbons to help pre-set page locations) or missalettes (much like the books we were using, they are cheaper and relatively straightforward to use; their disadvantage is that a new one is needed every liturgical year). Some vendors of these books are:

We are also providing on-line resources, which can be accessed both at home and when you arrive at the church. You can do so by visiting the parish website at www.visitationrcchurch.org and selecting the "Mass Readings/Prayers" Quick Link button (a picture and sample of the link is provided below). We are grateful to Word Among Us for offering this limited-time access to the Mass prayers and readings during this time and will continue to look for more long-term solutions (including personalized prayer and reading offerings) as well as communally-based alternatives such as in-church multimedia tools.

4PM - Mass WITH a congregation, in-church Communion during Mass (no outdoor Communion afterwards)

9AM - Mass Live streamed WITH a congregation. Outdoor Communion will be available afterwards and radio reception available in the parking lot at 107.7FM

11AM - Mass WITH a congregation, in-church Communion during Mass (no outdoor Communion afterwards) 

PLEASE NOTE: While making a reservation is not required, we are encouraging people to do so; this way you can be assured of having a seat. We have noticed that in-church attendance is steadily increasing and, in anticipation that we may reach capacity at weekend Masses, we have prepared the Church Hall for social distancing and live-streaming the Mass from upstairs. When needed, Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion will bring the Blessed Sacrament so that people in the Church Hall can receive Communion during Mass.