[UPDATE: All Masses are suspended until further notice; this includes Holy Week & Easter. Please check back here and see newsletter postings for information for live streamed liturgies, commutation of Mass obligations, and other information.]

Dear friends,

Bishop Guglielmone has just made the following announcement to the clergy of the Diocese of Charleston which also has effect for our Ordinariate community:

"The COVID-19 coronavirus continues to spread throughout the United States, and we must take care to protect ourselves and those who are most vulnerable. The Center of Disease Control and various government entities have issued directives to limit the number of people who can gather in one place. As a result of these recommendations, and in collaboration with other dioceses in our province, there are to be no sacramental or other liturgical celebrations anywhere in the Diocese of Charleston effective at 12:00 p.m. on Tuesday, March 17 through the end of day on Wednesday, April 1, 2020."

Bishop Lopes has stated that for the faithful of the Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter, the obligation to attend Sunday Mass on March 22nd and March 29th is commuted (not dispensed). This means that the Sunday obligation of the Christian faithful is met through one of the two following pious practices:

Prayerful reflection upon the Sunday Scripture readings, concluding that time by the recitation of the Prayer of Humble Access or the Anima Christi;
The recitation of the Rosary as a family.

Later this week I will send guides to facilitate each of these options. The faithful of the Diocese of Charleston are dispensed from their Mass obligation for these two Sundays.

During this time I will offer Mass privately, and you may be sure that I will pray for your health and well-being and bear your intentions in my heart.

I will be available to you for any pastoral need. My cell phone is here, and I may also be reached by email.

I do not yet know what office hours will be maintained for Corpus Christi & St. Mary's, but will let you know once that is determined.

Finally, be of good cheer! Christ has overcome the world! The words of C.S. Lewis's fictional demon Screwtape in The Screwtape Letters applies to our own unfamiliar and undesired situation: "Like most of the other things which humans are excited about, such as health and sickness, age and youth, or war and peace, it is, from the point of view of the spiritual life, mainly raw material."

This pandemic, and it consequent disruption of our daily lives and of our plans big and small, is the raw material from which we may mold deeds of love, minutes, hours, and days of patience, deeper and more dependent prayer, renewal of family relationships, contemplation of God's holy word in the Scriptures, service of the needy, rest and recreation, and grateful obedience. Let us make the most this time!

God bless you,
Fr Allen