Sunday, March 22, 2020

Catholics there are a huge number of live streaming Masses at ever time

Many Catholics in America can't go to Mass today not because they're sick or because they're too far from a church but because no Masses are being offered in order that the spread of COVID 19 can be constrained.

But fortunately there are more tons of Masses being offered live on the Internet.

Go to Mass-online.org and you'll find this:


Click on the Holy Mass online in English link and you'll see this:
Pick a time and a parish and voila you'll be able to watch the Mass online live.  There are literally Masses every 1/2 hour or so.

Note since I only live in one time zone I don't know if the event times are adjusted for your time zone or if they always show up in your local time.  If you're not in Pacific US time and you see the times in your local time please post a comment so I can update the article.

I'm no theologian however I recall that when Pope Francis became Pope I heard that those who watched his first talk live received the blessing he gave the world but that those who watched a recording didn't.

That makes sense in that traditionally if there was an overflow crowd at a Mass those who were outside the church but who were part of the crowd counted as attending the Mass and received the Grace for doing so.  On the other hand the idea of getting repeated blessings by looping a video of a priest giving a blessing doesn't make a lot of sense.

Now of course we can't go to Communion in a livestream.  However God in His infinite love and Mercy has provided us with a way to receive Communion when, through no fault of our own, we can't be physically present at Mass.

It's called a spiritual communion.  You can find the prayer at EWTN and I'm repeating it here as well:

My Jesus,
I believe that You
are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.
I love You above all things,
and I desire to receive You into my soul.
Since I cannot at this moment
receive You sacramentally,
come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace You as if You were already there and unite myself wholly to You. Never permit me to be separated from You.
Amen.

We should take this time as a way to increase our love for God by recognizing how going to Mass isn't something we have to do but realizing, when we can't attend in this crisis, that it's something we get to do.

Hopefully when we leave this desert and Masses resume we'll be more appreciative of just how good God is to us by sharing Himself Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity at every Mass.

1 comment:

Anne C. said...

Thanks for the link!The priest in our neighboring parish has a live-stream Mass on Facebook, and was having drive-by Confessions and Communion. But this week, he has cold symptoms and has cancelled them as a safety precaution. I understand that the Mass will go on, since a friend of mine is in the Schola.(His wife sent me that Spiritual Communion prayer this morning.)