CHRISTMAS MASSES ~ A message from Fr Frank.
*Christmas will be very different for us this year and our Christmas Masses are no exception. We are not able to have the extra traditions like carol singing, booklets, candles etc that we are used to, and as sad as this is, our priority is to follow the regulations to keep EVERYONE safe.
The essential act of worship, however, remains a constant for us to enjoy, so we are pleased to be able to offer several Masses during the 'Octave of Christmas' (Christmas Day to New Year's Day inclusive) which ALL COUNT as your commitment to the birth of Christ – they are all of equal importance.
Realistically, we know that lots of people would prefer to attend Mass on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day so we need to be very careful in keeping our Church and parishioners safe as we cannot seat more than about 60-70 people safely inside Church.
Please attend on other days if you can in order to spread the numbers of people attending throughout the 9 days.
NOTE:
*Please continue to book a place at all Masses so we can control numbers attending using the Parish Eventbright link
*We will need to run a STRICT BOOKING SYSTEM for the 2 Masses on Christmas Eve and the 1 on Christmas morning as likely to be busy – please book your tickets online using the eventbright link or call the parish office if you do not have access to the internet and we will book it for you.
*Should anyone attend those 3 Masses who have NOT booked a place with us we will ask them to wait outside until we have seated all those with reservations and then we will do our best to try to find safe places for them to sit/stand inside the Church.
The 'Octave of Christmas' Masses are as follows:
Thursday 24th Dec / Christmas Eve at 5.00pm
Thursday 24th Dec / Christmas Eve at 8.00pm
Fri 25th Dec / Christmas Day at 10.00am
Saturday 26th Dec at 6pm
Sunday 27th Dec at 9.30am
Monday 28th Dec at 10am
Tuesday 29th Dec at 7.30pm
Wednesday 30th Dec at 7.30pm
Thursday 31st Dec at 10am
Friday 1st Jan at 7.30pm
Please choose the Mass you can attend and book your place.
In order to keep everyone safe and in line with government and diocesan guidelines, please observe the following:
-only attend Church if you do not have symptoms of Coronavirus, are not shielding for health reasons and have not been asked to isolate
-please bring a face mask/ face covering with you and keep it on at all times whilst inside the Church
-we ask you to observe social distancing with anyone who is not in your household or support bubble, both inside and outside of church
-please use hand sanitiser on entry
-please check in on arrival using our QR code on your track and trace app
-we will not distribute the traditional envelopes for the annual gift to your parish priest but there will be a basket ON ARRIVAL for any donations (there will be no offertory collection made during Mass)
Finally, it should be noted that there are no toilet facilities available in the church at this time. Mass duration will be approx 25 minutes.
Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience or distress these new measures may cause but we hope we can offer the gift of Safe, Holy Mass to as many people as possible this Christmas season.
God bless you all. Fr Frank
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