Parish Updates – Monday, March 23, 2020
Our Church Office – Entrance by appointment only. Please email us (rectory@stcolumbaonline.org) or call 845-227-8380 to minimize contact. You will likely be met or spoken to outside.
Thank you for your donations! The best way for envelopes is to mail them or put them in the Poor Box in church (left as you enter). By the end of this week we will have up and running our new We Share Program which is used in many parishes. You can donate using your credit or debit card. More to come soon.
Our Church will be closed all day Tuesday for the cleaning and sealing of the new floors. We are sorry for the inconvenience. This is part of the renovation work from the Fall. The Church continues to be open daily but we must ask you – please do not enter if you have any cold symptoms such as coughing, sneezing, etc. Thank you!
We are sad to inform you that there will be no public celebration of Holy Week and Easter this year. The liturgies will be private and will be live streamed by Father Michael and Father Connolly. More to come on this.
As we are all united in the pandemic, may we all be united in prayer, Pope Francis urges.
Pope Francis has invited all Christians of the globe to unite on March 25 at noon (7:00 am New York time) to pray the Our Father together — so that as the entire world is suffering from the pandemic, so the Lord might hear all of Christendom united in prayer.
On that day, Catholics and many Christians are celebrating the Annunciation, the day Gabriel visited Our Lady and thus the feast of the Lord becoming flesh within the womb of the Virgin.
The pope made the invitation at the end of the Angelus address, live-streamed from the Apostolic Library.
He also said that on Friday, March 27, he will spend time in prayer in St. Peter’s, starting at 6 pm. (1:00 pm New York time) He invited the faithful to tune in to the ceremony, which will include the Liturgy of the Word, and benediction with the Blessed Sacrament. He said he will give an “urbi et orbi” apostolic blessing — “to the City of Rome and the world” — with the possibility of attaining a plenary indulgence.
The urbi et orbi blessings are usually given on solemn occasions — Christmas, Easter, and when a new pope is elected, as his first blessing for the world.
After the end of his reflection in the Apostolic Library, the pope went to the window overlooking the empty St. Peter’s Square, and blessed the security guards and, symbolically, the world.
