From the Bishop
With joyful hearts, we return In advance of the return to Mass on June 5-6, Bishop David M. O’Connell, C.M., wrote the following to the faithful of the Diocese of Trenton, desiring to encourage and explain the plans for in-person Mass attendance.
T
his weekend, when the Catholic Church in our Diocese celebrates the Solemn Feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, seems like the perfect occasion to welcome all the faithful of the four counties to return to full participation in the Holy Eucharist by lifting the dispensation from the Sunday/Holy Day Mass obligation that was granted a year ago March 12 to protect them from the virulent pandemic that threatened their lives, health and well-being as well as that of the community as a whole.
we are as a Catholic Christian commuThe Church has never required nity as well as the goal of who and what individuals who are sick, contagious or we seek to become along with our Cathotherwise disabled/impeded to observe olic sisters and brothers. We believe that this obligation, but such a widespread as the heart of our Catholic faith and dispensation given to all the faithful has not merely as a matter of obligation. been rare in the Church’s history. The In the past year, I was so happy to same exception continues to hold for the hear many of the faithful speak fresick, contagious or otherwise disabled/ quently and with such longing of their impeded, but the rest of the faithful are desire to return to Mass with their parasked to return to the normal practice ish communities in full churches once of attending Mass on Sundays and Holy again. Now, at long last, that opportuDays of obligation with their parish nity arrives and we welcome it and one communities as the dispensation fades another with joyful hearts. into our collective memory. Mindful that the pandemic is still The Catholic Church has long spoken of the Holy Eucharist as the “source in our midst, we should pray for its end and exercise reasonable care to do and summit of the Christian life (Vatiwhatever we can to bring that end about can II, Lumen Gentium, 11; Catechism in our communities. of the Catholic Church, 1324).” The Come back to Holy Mass! Welcome Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is, indeed, the Ministrare Ministrari root and foundation of who and what Non home!
6 THE MONITOR MAGAZINE June 2021
