Dear Parishioners,
Our Hands of Christ team is calling parishioners to see how everyone is doing. If you have any needs in the meantime, including emotional, spiritual or material needs, please call the office and follow the prompts. Pressing “0” allows you to record a message for our Hands of Christ team, and one of them will call you very soon, usually within minutes. Pressing “1” or “2” connects you to a priest’s cell phone.
Our tentative schedule for the Sacred Triduum is: Holy Thursday at 7 pm, Good Friday at 3 pm and the Night Vigil of Easter at 8:30 pm. These are all private celebrations, so there will be no parishioner congregation present, but our plan is to live-stream them, just as we’ve been live-streaming the daily 8 am Mass, on our parish Facebook page .
Daily homilies are on the bottom left of the MyParishApp screen. If you have the app on your smart phone, then select “Saint Mary Parish”.
Our priests are still out administering the Sacrament of Anointing of the Sick to parishioners who are seriously ill, and the Last Sacraments to parishioners who are dying. Also, each healthcare facility in Oak Ridge still receives a Eucharistic Benediction twice a week from the parking lot of each facility.
Our Coordinator of Volunteers Cyndi Panter is organizing volunteers to sew medical masks with MERV 15 rated filters (donated by Southeast Mechanical Contractors of Oak Ridge) to donate to hospitals and other medical facilities. She has spoken to one of a team of people in the NY Governor’s office in charge of volunteer donations, filled out forms and is waiting for them to send addresses of where to send the masks. She also has another group of people living in NYC eager to distribute to area hospitals and clinics. The Benedictine Sisters in Ferdinand, IN that work at the local hospitals in southern Indiana have asked for 75 of these masks, and several of our local doctors offices have also requested the masks. For now, this sewing team desperately needs more people sewing. If you have sewing skills, then please call the office at any time and leave a message for Cyndi. She’ll automatically get an email telling her she has a message from you.
Hang in there. And please call your neighbors to see how they’re doing.