Celebrating the Christmas Season 2020-2021
St Fillan’s and St Margaret’s
Dear Friends in Christ
A Happy Christmas to you! I know that the gift of the Lord once again will give you comfort and joy, no matter what. As you know, further measures to help contain the spread of Covid19 have been announced by the First Minister, and, from Boxing Day, mainland Scotland will be placed under Tier 4 restrictions. At this level, public worship can still take place in churches. It is a sign that the Scottish Government recognises the importance of religious practice, and that we have all cooperated so well with the guidance on sanitation of buildings and management of those attending.
Churches remain among the safest places to be.
Weekend Masses, baptisms, and funerals
The maximum number of those who can attend, however, has been reduced from 50 to 20. This has minimal impact upon us, since our churches are small. St Margaret’s, Comrie, is unaffected, since we can only usually accommodate about 13 people (20 as an absolute maximum, if households are present who can sit together, and this has so far only applied to funerals). For St Fillan’s, the weekend system we have is well placed to cope with this, for us, slight reduction in numbers, since it simply means that I shall only send out invitations with the maximum number of 20 in mind. This number will also be applied to baptisms and funerals
Daily Mass
However, there may be some need for adjustment in our daily mass attendance. Up until now, to attend mass during the week all that has been required is that people are registered. They can then turn up, and then, in the unlikely event that we might go over our capacity, they would be prepared to go home. This has not happened, though we have come close on a couple of occasions! The fact is, though, that we regularly exceed 20 at the daily mass.
Rather than start another booking system, or send out another set of invitations, I ask people to ‘sign up’ on the sheets provided on entry to St Fillan’s, expressing a preference for which daily mass they attend, asking that people are both generous and thoughtful. It does not mean that you must attend every time, but it gives us a rough idea, and once 20 names have been ‘recorded’, we shall consider that mass ‘spoken for’. It is likely that most daily mass attendees will be able to attend on more than one morning, if desired, but it is important to give everyone a fair chance.
If you have not previously attended daily mass but are thinking of it, please contact me first before turning up.
As with all masses and celebrations in church, I would ask you to be at the church in plenty of time and to follow all the guidelines.
Wishing you once more a Happy and Peaceful Christmas
