One of the things that has impressed me most during the shutdown is how our parishioners have been looking out for each other. This first became obvious to me when, every time I would send an e-mail announcing that I would be bringing communion to a certain neighborhood, I would inevitably have a couple more communion sign-ups within a few hours, always from that neighborhood. It turns out, when I would send out my route maps, neighbors would look for each other and then call each other if someone near them forgot to sign up. What a wonderful testament to the community connections built up in our parish over the years!
Even more, I have been touched by parishioners who have agreed to serve as, for lack of a better term, “digital ambassadors.” Out of necessity, trying to minister as one priest to so many people, I rely almost exclusively on the efficiency of e-mail and webforms, but I am aware that we have a number of parishioners, usually elderly, who struggle technologically and have had difficulty accessing the parish and the sacraments. Over the course of this communion program, I have received maybe a dozen e-mails about parishioners who would like communion but who do not have access to e-mail. Now, I cannot take direct responsibility for communicating everything to each of these folks by phone, so what I have been doing is asking the parishioner who brings it to my attention (via e-mail) to be the nexus of communication; in other words, to use their own e-mail address in the webform for the technologically less inclined parishioner, and to transmit my communication themselves to the parties in question. Without fail, everyone I have asked has agreed to do it.
Neighbors looking out for neighbors and parishioners looking out for parishioners is a sign that we take the commandments of Christ seriously. This sort of communal mentality is going to be even more necessary as we ramp up to public Masses again. Blessedly, our people have already proven that they are prepared to serve each other with the humility of Jesus.
Fr. Moore 