Careful, Kind and Creative during COVID-19

At the end of March 2020, a month into Lent and with the Coronavirus pandemic closing in around us, our Masses were suspended and our church buildings closed. Lent this year placed us in a desert-experience different to any other Lent we have experienced; and Easter was celebrated in homes around prayer spaces and computer screens rather than around a newly-lit Easter candle and a church bursting with people. With the situation changing frequently during these past two months, we have had to respond as best we could. This has required discernment amidst the unpredictability, as well as adaptability and much prayer. As a Diocese, Bishop Anthony invited us to “be careful, be kind and be creative”, and parishes have indeed responded in this way. Here are just a few of the many ways that this care and creativity has been expressed.

Staying Connected

Communicating with each other in times of physical distancing has been a key priority. Social media flourished, providing a path of connection that is immediate and effective; and constant emails are reaching parishioners’ inboxes to keep all informed. Parish staff at Manly Freshwater Parish, Michelle, Paula and Jenny, dedicated themselves to collecting, organising and correcting parishioner contact details, and their tireless efforts have resulted in over 2000 contacts. This enabled an effective promotion for the Easter Sunday live streamed Mass which attracted significant participation. The weekly “Keep in Touch” email, distributed by Epping and Carlingford Parish, offers suitable resources for parishioners, and utilises the Mailchimp tool to manage email addresses and keep track of sent emails. For those who are not on email, the “Circle of Friends” group offers a friendly phone call to check in with parishioners. As a result of COVID-19, the personal delivery of parish bulletins is a new service that parishes have implemented. Kincumber Parish has two teams of volunteers that hand-deliver bulletins to about 30 households each weekend. Also, the Parish Pastoral Care Team connects with many parishioners by telephone and follows up with any special requests. St Ives Parish is collaborating with the Mount Ku-ring-gai Community Centre to distribute packages of fruits and vegetables to isolated parishioners in need. Delivered in person by parish staff Michelle and Belinda, these are a concrete way of showing support. Overall, a lot of appreciation has been expressed at the efforts of Parish staff and volunteers all across the Diocese who are going over and above to ensure that connections are fostered with all parishioners, as much as is possibly practical. A very big thank you to all!

Formed in Faith

Sharing resources with each other has allowed us to continue to be nourished in our faith. The Office for Evangelisation ‘Connected in Christ’ resource has been distributed widely and offers links to resources for each Sunday in the liturgical year.

This has helped to resource the domestic church, especially during the most sacred celebrations of our liturgical year at Easter, inviting parishioners to bring the Easter symbols into their homes.

At Pymble Parish, a pre-existing Flocknote platform provided the perfect communications tool for this time, with many more answering the call to join up.

Built upon this platform, is the Word on Fire Digital Platform that gives every parishioner access to all content from Bishop Robert Barron’s ministry. These video courses, talks and other materials can be streamed directly on personal devices, offering unrestricted faith formation for each parishioner from the one parish subscription.

A Creative Stations of the Cross

The celebration of the Triduum Liturgies called for creativity, and Manly Freshwater Parish responded by organising a very reflective and beautiful online video of the Stations of the Cross, with parishioners presenting each station, interspersed with music coordinated by Simon Hyland.

Creative Confession

Celebrating the Sacraments during this time has been a challenge and during Lent, Fr Greg Skulski SDS of Gosford Parish set up an inviting outdoor space to celebrate the Sacrament of Penance, allowing both privacy and adherence to physical distancing.

Mass Live Streamed

Many parishes have embraced Facebook or YouTube to offer a live streaming of the celebration of the Mass. What a joy to be able to participate in the Liturgy in this way, whether a Diocesan Mass from Cathedral Parish, or Mass from our own parish with our local family of faith. Mass online can feel quite personal, as one parishioner from Gosford Parish stated, “I feel like Mass is being said just for me.” Seeing familiar names pop up on the ‘chat’ feature alongside the live streamed Mass video allows us to feel even more connected with fellow parishioners. Fr Paul Finucane, at Kincumber Parish, took a moment at the end of Mass to engage in real time with parishioners, to read their comments and say hello, so that this could be a moment of real engagement of the people of the parish with their parish priest.

Fr Jim McKeon, from Chatswood Parish, has made available video recording of his homilies, to engage people with a pertinent message for each week that is easy to access directly.

Some homilies for children have also been recorded to connect with our youngest parishioners, such as this one pictured here, which uses a play on words of ‘pastor’ and ‘pasta’ - a memorable and entertaining homily for Good Shepherd Sunday!

Liturgy of the Word

Lynn Siau, co-ordinator of the Sacramental Programme and Children’s Ministries at the Parish of Epping and Carlingford, has creatively utilised Facebook to offer real-time Children’s Liturgy of the Word at the start of the live streamed Mass each Sunday.

As Mass begins, families can join a closed Facebook group, which offers privacy for the children and allows Lynn to engage with them via the chat function in a safe space. Over 50 families are taking part.

Creative elements of this initiative include uploading activity sheets as PDFs, and inviting families to submit video clips of children reading the scripture texts which are then shown during the session. Lynn says “It was wonderful experiencing the real-time interaction, as ‘hellos’ were typed and I was able to greet the families”. Three other volunteers are now also leading the session.

Engaging Youth

The young people of the Diocese have readily made the transfer from the physical space to the digital space.

The Youth Group at Gosford Parish wasted no time in organising fun sessions online that include chat, games, competitions with prizes, prayer and formation. It is quite remarkable how all these elements transfer well into the digital space

Re-imagining Children’s

with some creativity and thought.

With a dash of extra creativity, a whole ‘praise and worship’ night was relocated online. The Salvatorian Praise and Worship event on Saturday 16 May reached over 5000 young people, and combined a talk, prayer and amazing music to create a powerful youth event.

With SRE classes unable to continue in state schools, our Diocese of Broken Bay CCD team began an enormous effort to adapt the CCD curriculum into an interactive format that could be used by families online. This initiative has been welcomed and used widely across NSW.

Fr Paul Tran SDS from Gosford Parish is offering a weekly Zoom Bible Study, and joins many others in parishes across our Diocese in offering a variety of creative ways for people to continue to connect for formation in small groups. In May, Pennant Hills Parish offered a daily online prayer group that gathers to pray the Rosary together. An advantage of using Zoom for this type of prayer is that participants can join simply through their telephone without the need for an internet connection.

Alpha Online

One initiative that is an unlikely entrant into the digital space is Alpha. With one of the core elements being a shared meal, there was initially some debate as to whether it would be best to put it on hold for the time being. However, the other elements of Alpha of watching a video and small-group conversation have shown to be equally effective online. The parishes of St Ives, Epping and Carlingford, North Harbour and Pennant Hills have made the switch. Denis McNamara from Epping and Carlingford Parish says there has been a “real enthusiasm and wonderful sense of sharing on Zoom”.

.An innovative use of Alpha online has been with the young people of the Diocese. With physical boundaries eliminated, why not connect all our High Schools and run the Youth Alpha series via Zoom? Co-ordinated by Michael Tobin and Fiona Green, with support from youth ministers across the Diocese, around 70 high school students are currently doing exactly this, exploring faith in an environment of fun and community, on a platform they feel comfortable engaging with.

A Personal Touch

In these times when we are apart, parishes are finding creative ways to keep a focus on the people of the parish. Mother’s Day provided an occasion to celebrate our mothers, and North Harbour Catholic Community created a video using photos submitted by parishioners to honour and pray for all mums.

Another beautiful initiative from Lower North Shore Parish is the ‘virtual choir’ rendition of “Nothing Can Trouble”, a perfect choice of song for this time of pandemic. Lisa Lewis, Director of Music at the Parish, co-ordinated the rehearsals and planning. Each member of the choir recorded their part, and this was then woven together to produce the finished product. Lisa looks forward to when she will be able to next hear the whole congregation gathered in song, but says that in this difficult time, these projects have been able to bring people together around music which can really touch people’s hearts. A second song is currently being prepared and can be seen at the Music-LNS YouTube channel.

Come on in!

The ease of being able make to a video recording today has allowed our clergy and parish teams to graciously invite us behind the scenes and give us a glimpse into various aspects of parish life.

On Good Shepherd Sunday, Fr Greg Skulski SDS and Fr Paul Tran SDS from Gosford Parish allowed us into their kitchen to share with us their hobbies, and in particular their love of cooking through a live cooking demonstration.

At Wahroonga Parish, seminarian Shayne D’Cunha gave us a “Peek into the Priory”, which featured more cooking, this time by Fr David Ranson, as well as an insight into the efforts of the hard working parish team, from washing the windows and tidying the grounds, to a birthday celebration – a real-life snap-shot in the life of a real parish!

As restrictions now begin to be eased, it seems that we may have turned a corner in this journey through the pandemic. We are being welcomed back, in a measured way, to our physical church buildings, and re-connecting with each other person-to-person.

As we move forward, we should take the creativity and personal kindness that has been a hallmark of our past two months, and allow this innovation to continue and to shape our future. Let’s continue to be careful, to be kind and to be creative.