Live streaming changes

Friends

    Peace be with you. 

    Five years ago, our lives were all changed during the Covid-19 lockdown. Priests responded differently to the challenge of being told that people could not be present for Mass. One common response, nonetheless, was to invest in live-streaming equipment. At St. Patrick’s, we invested as minimally as possible. We have one camera that points from the balcony to the sanctuary which broadcasts on our Facebook page. We don’t have anyone monitoring our broadcast, which means we aren’t aware if something is going wrong either on our part or on the part of a bad actor making inappropriate comments. To do it well would cost an investment of time and money that, given the need to fix the flooring and ceiling tiles in church, needs to be invested elsewhere. 

    With this in mind, we are going to discontinue regularly broadcasting our Saturday evening Masses effective immediately. If you or someone you know is homebound and desires to watch a livestream Mass, Blessed Sacrament Church in Waterloo offers one through its website and St. Joseph Church in Bellevue also offers one on both Facebook and YouTube. There’s also EWTN and other televised Mass on local television stations. There’s a website through the Archdiocese of Dubuque that lists churches that claim to livestream but, of the five listed in Cedar Rapids, I couldn’t find a single video of Mass on any of their platforms for the last year. My guess is that, like St. Patrick’s, they discontinued livestreaming at some point.

    Please don’t think I’m discontinuing because of a fear of technology. We will continue to broadcast our 8:00 am Mass on KMMK Radio and will occasionally live streaming Masses, especially important ones that we want to remember. However, the truth is that Mass is a participative reality. It’s not for spectators. Mass is a bodily reality not purely a mentally reality. It’s bodily (for those who are able) because you sit, stand, and kneel but it’s also bodily because you speak responses and listen attentively to readings and prayers. Mass puts us into the presence of a friend, our Lord Jesus. For five years, some people have been calling their friend via video chat and watching while he talks. If this is you, I hope you’ll consider, if you are able, to go visit your friend in person and come back in person to Mass. Won’t it feel great to receive communion again? Won’t it feel good to respond with your fellow parishioners to the responses and join in the antiphons and hymns? Even if you’re still nervous about crowds, isn’t at least a little part of you yearning to get back to normal?