Sunday Mass Schedule Change

Sunday Mass Schedule Change With the increased activities, particularly on Sundays, our parish has been facing the challenge of the need for more space. This need was voiced during our Parish Transformation process in the year 2015 and it becomes more evident now. In order to solve this “good problem,” and after so much consultation and prayers, I decided to change our Sunday 9:30am Mass to 10:30am, effective on Sunday March 5th, the First Sunday of Lent.

This new schedule will allow our Religious Education students to have their Sunday class from 9:15am to a few minutes before the 10:30am mass. Below are a few advantages for this change:

1. The Religious Education (R. E.) classrooms will be available for meetings, RCIA classes, and Bible Sharing, taking place after the 10:30am mass.
   
2. The R. E. students and catechists will be able to join our community events scheduled after the 10:30am mass.
3. The R. E. student and families will have an option to attend the 8am mass before their class if the 10:30am mass is not convenient occasionally. The same applies to other members of our parish. This is partially why from Jan. 1st, 2017, we have been working to improve our 8am mass. This used to be called “express mass” has been added with full service music and hymns and altar servers. I hope this change will help our 8:00am mass attendees have a better prayer and worship experience on Sundays.
4. I will have time to visit our R. E. classrooms more frequently and to teach our Mandarin RCIA and Bible Sharing before the 10:30am mass as needed.
5. Finally, for those of you who need to catch up with your sleep-debt, you can have a late start on Sundays.

With this change, our monthly Indonesian and Mandarin mass will move to 12:00 noon on the respected Sundays and our yearly Italian Feasts with St. Rocco and SMI will be worked out accordingly. I understand that this change will affect most of you. I ask for your openness, understanding, and cooperation since at the present moment, this is the only doable-way to resolve our space constraint as our parish continues to grow.

~Fr. Francis