I try very hard to preserve the distinctiveness of Advent. I do not sing or even listen to Christmas hymns until December 24th at 5:00 p.m. (no thanks to my normal favorite radio station, Praise 106.5!). I do not decorate (though that may have more to do with a certain lazy gene I possess). I add a day of fasting each week. Just like skipping breakfast on Thanksgiving Day to make room for dinner, I try not to feast before the great and holy day of Christmas, so that my soul is empty and prepared for the coming of our Lord.
Unfortunately, in parish life, Christmas requires a lot of planning, so this rule does not apply to the logistics of Christmas. In the staff meeting this week, we discussed seating for the Christmas Masses, and there are some things I thought I would let you know about now, so you, too, can start to plan.
- As with previous years, I believe Canon 905 limits me to two Masses on Christmas Eve and three on Christmas Day, so our Mass schedule is 5:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. on Christmas Eve and 9:30 a.m. on Christmas Day (I would gladly add a second Mass on Christmas Day, but no one seems excited about this idea). [Technically, a Mass after midnight counts for Christmas (cf. Can. 202), so I’m pondering the idea of doing an actual midnight Mass next year and maybe an 11:00 a.m. on Christmas, allowing us to have four total Masses.]
- We will have the gym available for overflow seating at all the Masses. We will stream the Mass into the gym and bring the Eucharist over at communion time. If parishioners are willing to make a Christmas sacrifice for the sake of creating a welcoming and evangelical environment for visitors, they might consider planning to sit in the gym for Christmas.
- We are going to maintain our system of having one side of the nave reserved for distanced seating. We had discussed increasing seating capacity in the church by having all distanced seating in the gym or requiring pre-registration for distanced seating but decided not to do either. For one thing, there are still too many parents who are worried about their unvaccinated children and too many older folks who are worried about breakthrough infections, so demand for distanced seating remains high. For another thing, this system has been working well for us so far, and my staff thought to remind me that it is best to keep changes to a minimum on Christmas.
- Starting this Sunday, we will be flipping the distanced/not distanced sides. Right now, because the distanced side is nearest the gathering space, people often sit in the distanced area by default. Instead, we want the default seating section to be non-distanced, and for distanced seating to be more of a deliberate choice.
Fr. Moore 