Worship in the Time of Corona

As I write this, public Mass has been suspended in pretty much every diocese in the United States.

Many priests and bishops have stepped up the plate and are live streaming masses online or broadcasting them on the local television stations. For all the flack that social media technology has gotten for isolating people, it sure has enabled a lot of pastors to maintain a connection with their flocks.

This morning ,we decided not to attempt watching one of these Masses. Since we have two little ones under the age of five, we figured we needed something a little more immersive than just watching something on a TV screen. Kids that age need something they can touch and interact with, or they'll just tune it out, so we knew that we needed to put together a prayer service of some kind.

What we did first was to set up a simple home altar on our coffee table.

Two bed sheets, two candles, and a crucifix. I used a jar of pinto beans to stand the crucifix in...I couldn't think of anything else on short notice. One of the candles was missing a wick, so Chris made one out of a bamboo spear and some extra candle wax we had lying around. 

Then I realized I should probably toss a Bible on there...

We pulled up the mass readings on a phone, Chris started with an opening prayer, and we began. 

We got dressed, but no shoes. 

The kids had trouble staying quiet and listening to the readings, even with us explaining. We ended up breaking out the kids' Bible. The simpler stories and pictures made a huge difference in getting them engaged. 

Luckily, both the first reading and the gospel had a child's Bible story version in the book, so we were left purely to our own devices only with the second reading. 

We ended with an Our Father and a Spiritual Communion prayer from a random Chews Life toy we happened to have lying around. 

It was kinda hard to read. 

And...that was it. Chris went to go get take out from our favorite Taqueria and I managed to catch a few moments of Bishop Barron's homily for the day while he was out. 

Next Sunday, I'll probably look at the readings ahead of time and see if I can find a corresponding picture or simplified story version in one of our children's Bibles (we have three different ones...I have bit of a book hording problem), and I'll add an opening hymn and a better copy of the Spiritual Communion prayer (that we can actually, you know, read easily). 

I really miss 'real' Mass, especially with all the turmoil that we've been experiencing lately. I've been praying every day since this whole thing started that we can attend Mass this Easter.

Until then, we'll just keep figuring out how to worship at home via trial and error, and we'll try to get better at the types of prayer that we can do at home.

I'm telling y'all, Lent got REAL this year.