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April 26, 2020
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It Happens EVERY Year: You would think I would learn. But then again, my excuse for this mishap is that the Easter Vigil only happens ONCE a year.
The Easter Vigil has a habit of humbling even the most experienced of celebrants and masters of ceremonies. With the COVID-19 pandemic and the Stay at Home order, several parts of the Easter Vigil were eliminated. One element that was removed was the blessing of the fire. Another part was the blessing of water and the baptismal liturgy. Even with all the parts that were removed, I still managed to mess up from the very beginning of the liturgy. Right out the door, I forgot to incense the Paschal candle, and I failed to light the candles near the ambo. Usually, I wouldn’t be so worried about these things, but this year I was concerned about a little more perfection because we were live-streaming the liturgy. After getting to the presider’s chair and realizing I already messed up, I thought to myself I couldn’t wait to see what else I would do wrong.
All was going well until I got to my homily (it was going well because I wasn’t doing any of the readings or singing the responsorial psalms). If you were “at” our Easter Vigil or watched it later, you know where this storyline is going.
I was in the middle of my homily. I was happy with how it was going, and I thought my delivery was pretty good. I also thought I had a good message focusing in on the Resurrection and how the message of Easter took on a different meaning for us this year because of the pandemic. Then it happened. I could hear this faint little sound in my pocket. It was my phone. The sound continued to grow louder. I tried my best to silence it, but I knew all too well I couldn’t do it with any grace. On most occasions, I would have been able to turn to my watch and swipe to silence my phone. But my watch’s battery has been acting up, so my watch was dead. My only option was to silence my phone by using my phone. This wasn’t going to be easy, especially during a homily. I have a habit of accidentally silencing alarms, so I set my phone up so that I have to swipe the screen in a particular way to accomplish the silencing task. I disabled the features to silence my phone by pushing any of the buttons. At the same time, and to make matters even worse for this night, my phone is set so that my alarms grow increasingly louder with no action. So, here I am in the middle of my Easter Vigil homily, with hundreds watching because of our live streaming options, and my phone goes off. I put my hands in my pockets to see if I could “accidentally” silence it, but it kept getting louder and more annoying to me. At this point, I was having a challenging time focusing in on my homily. I knew I had to stop, pull out my phone, and just deal with it. There was no way around it. So, out came my phone and I had to describe what was going on. As soon as the phone went off, I knew it was the alarm to call my parents. I have it set at 9:30 every night to remind me, and EVERY Easter Vigil I fail to remember to shut it off. After silencing my phone, I waved and gave a shout out to my parents who were watching. Yes, Easter Vigil has a way of humbling most priests. I also knew at this point most would probably never remember my homily, but they would remember the alarm. The good in all of this is that I now have plenty of people to remind me for years to come!
The Festival: I’m sure you’ve already surmised that the festival is not taking place this year. As the leadership of the Parish discussed the options, we decided we would still run the raffle for several reasons. The first reason is that we felt it was important that SOME aspect of the festival take place on the weekend before Memorial Day weekend because we’ve had 50 years of festival fun that weekend; we were not going to let COVID-19 mess that up this year. This year’s “festival” may not be complete with rides and all, but we can at least say some aspect of the festival happened.
The second reason it was essential to move forward with the raffle is the financial reality. The festival is a significant annual fundraiser for us. Each year we net approximately $100,000 to $150,000. Given the drastic decline in Sunday offertory revenue, the added loss of NO festival revenue will create a substantial financial hit to the Parish. The raffle itself usually accounts for half of our net festival income. Going forward with the raffle was a “no brainer” because we need to narrow the gap in our lost revenue because of the crisis, and the proceeds from the raffle will help that goal.
The raffle tickets were dropped in the mail on Friday. I am hoping and praying that you can do your part to buy or sell $100 worth of tickets. If EVERY family who received raffle tickets (3,500 families) purchased $100 worth of tickets, we would cover not only the festival loss but also some portion of the loss from the significant decline in Sunday offertory revenue. Your generosity will go a long way to help our amazing Parish continue doing all the things it does. PLUS, you might be lucky enough to win one of the raffle prizes.
As a further incentive for you to buy (or sell) lots of tickets, and do so early, we have modified our Early Bird 100% ticket drawings. For every $100 worth of tickets you return (or $50 for seniors … 65 years old or older), you earn a chance at the Early Bird or the Festival 100% Drawings. Thus, if you return $200 worth of tickets, you can turn in 2 - 100% tickets (or 4 – 100% tickets if you are a senior)! To be eligible for the Early Bird Drawing, you need to return your raffle and applicable 100% tickets by 1 PM on Sunday, May 3, 2020. And this year, two (2) lucky winners will be drawn on May 4, 2020, from that pool of 100% tickets, and each will win $1,500! You can continue to turn in your raffle and applicable 100% tickets until the drawing on May 17, 2020. At that time, we will draw five (5) of the 100% tickets from the entire pool of tickets, and each will win $500.
Raffle tickets can be dropped off at the Parish Center (through the mail slot in the door), or they can be mailed to us.
Please know of my gratitude for your generosity, especially now given the huge financial hit the Parish is dealing with because of the pandemic. We’re still analyzing the numbers, and I plan to have a quasi “State of the Parish” address and presentation in the coming weeks.
Enjoy the week. Know of my prayers.
In Christ,
gmb
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