My Brothers and Sisters in Christ,
Published in the diocesan newspaper, The Message, is the decree for Holy Trinity Oratory. Holy Trinity has been part of our parish since 2015. The decree highlights this fact and presents to the parish of
Sts. Mary and John the turnover of the remaining responsibilities for the souls of those who once were members of Holy Trinity.
We are in a unique position to welcome these brothers and sisters of ours in a formal manner, and allow them to feel the familial effect of belonging to a welcoming community like our own. You may not really notice a lot of changes associated with the merger of the oratory into our parish; however, I wish to point out a couple of them to you so that we all are prepared for the transition.
Beginning Ash Wednesday, March 1st, daily Mass will be celebrated at 12:05 p.m. This will be the new time for the daily Mass and will be celebrated on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday each week. It will replace the 5:05 p.m. Mass. There will still be an evening Mass on Wednesdays at the St. John campus at 6:00 p.m. as is the current schedule. This will allow those who work during the day the opportunity to attend Mass during the week, when they are unable to attend the Mass at 12:05 p.m.
On Sundays, the Extraordinary Form of the Liturgy, commonly referred to as the Latin Mass, will be celebrated at the St. Mary campus by Fr. Don Dilger. The time for this Mass is still being put together. It will not conflict with the present weekend Mass schedule for our parish.
There will be a lot of moving and rearranging of our sacristies to accommodate the sacred objects at Holy Trinity. We want to find a use for many of them at both of our campuses. We will need help to bring them over to the St. Mary campus at some point. I hope you will be able to help. I’ll keep you posted as things develop over the coming weeks. Please pray for our community as we come together from different backgrounds to continue to merge and forge our new parish into whatever God has in store for us. It will be exciting!
Yours in Christ, Fr. Gordon