Alive and online

TODD DAGWELL

Streaming of Sunday Mass services from Sacred Heart Cathedral has begun, and will continue beyond Palm Sunday and the Easter Triduum services. This ushers in a “new normal” for worship in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle after the coronavirus forced the closure of all churches for the first time since the Spanish influenza struck a century ago.

On 19 March, Bishop Bill Wright in response to the risks of virus contagion initiated significant changes to church rituals, describing the unprecedented measures as “in the interests of the common good” but, nevertheless, a “painful sacrifice”.

These include the suspension of all church services until further notice and the limiting of people attending weddings and funerals in line with the Prime Minister’s announcements.

Bishop Bill said it was important to take all “reasonable and proportionate” precautions to ensure the health and safety of our brothers and sisters in the Church, and the broader community, but was clear that the effect on Catholic life would be substantial.

1. Watch Mass services streamed from Sacred Heart Cathedral: Sunday Mass will be celebrated by the Bishop or the Vicar General and available to view at www. mn.catholic.org.au/places/live-stream.

2. Praying with the Sunday readings: Such prayer may take many forms including Lectio Divina and Liturgies of the Word in families. Resources can be found at “Co-operating with our government authorities will unfortunately have a drastic impact on the life of the Church, forcing us to forgo many things that are precious and integral to our worship and common life,” Bishop Bill said.

Vicar-General, Fr Andrew Doohan, said the crisis was so extraordinary that the only reasonable comparison was the Spanish flu more than a century ago.

“This is really beyond the lived experience of anyone alive today,” Fr Andrew said. “In response we must practise social distancing and isolation, but as the Pope has been saying, we need to maintain human contact in some form, and technology can help.”

Fr Andrew said it was fortunate Sacred Heart Cathedral already had the infrastructure in place to enable Mass to be live-streamed, and under the circumstances it was the best the Diocese could offer.

“For Easter, and every Sunday for the foreseeable future, we recommend people tune in to the services at home and then spend some time reading the scriptures and in prayer,” Fr Andrew said. “We also

liturgyhelp.com/aus/mn/generalaccess. Simply enter your name and email.

3. The Prayer of the Church: We recommend morning and evening prayer to individuals and families. We suggest downloading the Universalis App, which contains not only the Prayer of the Church but also the Mass of the Day and many useful resources. plan to record Bishop Bill’s homily and put it up online.”

Bishop Bill said people should not confuse the lack of ceremony this year with the mistaken belief that Easter had been cancelled. “I’ve heard it said that it’s very sad that we can’t have Easter this year. But, of course, that’s not true,” he said. “We won’t be able to have ceremonies in our churches, for sure, but it will still very much be Easter. It just may be a lifechanging Easter for many people.

“Perhaps this year, deprived of the ‘going to church’ bit, and surrounded by fears and threats to our community, we can reach deeper into what Easter means to us.”

Bishop Bill suggested ways to celebrate Easter at home: read the gospel of Jesus’s suffering and death and talk about it as a family; wash the feet of those willing on Holy Thursday night; and on Sunday morning, instead of going to church, watch the sunrise and simply say or sing "Alleluia" as the light returns to the Earth.

While Easter weekend will soon pass, the intrusion of coronavirus in our lives is expected to last many months, if not a year. Fr Andrew said despite churches

4. Recorded Homilies: The homilies of Bishop Bill or Fr Andrew from the Cathedral Mass on Sundays will be recorded and made available online by lunchtime on Sundays. These may help in reflections on the readings of the day. Search for The Doohan Discourse on Spotify or iTunes. closing and society grinding to a halt, he expected priests to remain busy. “The sick still need to be visited and the dead will need to be buried,” he said. “The Bishop is asking his priests to be with the people in whatever fashion is possible while observing public health directives.”

Fr Andrew also encouraged people to pray more often and to remember the world is united in this struggle. “Prayerful solidarity is a very good thing. If we pray more, we’ll all be praying for a solution to this crisis together.”

Go to www.mn.catholic.org.au/places/ live-stream to live-stream Easter and Sunday services.

Streaming of Sunday Mass services from Sacred Heart Cathedral has begun, and will continue beyond Palm Sunday and the Easter Triduum services. This ushers in a “new normal” for worship in the Diocese of Maitland-Newcastle after the coronavirus forced the closure of all churches for the first time since the Spanish influenza struck a century ago.