After I wrote last week about the difficult question of trying to balance church capacity with the desire to have parishioners attend weekend Mass as often as possible, a few things happened:
First, our Saturday night Mass the next day was so full we had to seat people in the choir loft, while our Sunday Masses still had at least 25% of the pews empty. We have no idea if that was a fluke or a new status quo.
Second, we had parishioners, usually of an older generation, write back saying that they have not been comfortable coming to weekend Mass yet, but will be in a few weeks once they have received the second dose of the COVID vaccine. This suggests that we probably should not start filling the church immediately, since we may have new people returning soon.
Third, at least two parishioners pointed out that the math almost works out to allow each parishioner one “cheat” weekend, where they can attend weekend Mass on their off week.
I want to thank everyone who wrote in with their ideas. There are pros and cons to everything that has been suggested, but still no clear path forward. As such, at this point we are going to keep registering people for a two-week cycle and checking them in when they arrive. Nevertheless, everyone is welcome to try to attend weekend Mass on their off weeks, as long as they are okay with waiting until 5 minutes before Mass to be seated. We ask non-registered folks to wait because, though we have not had to do this yet, there is always the possibility that every registered parishioner for a Mass might show up, forcing us to turn away the drop-ins.
One family who had been dropping in on their off weeks even wrote to say that they pray each week to be turned away, because it means that people are returning to church in greater numbers. I think I can pray for that, too.
Fr. Moore 