Last Monday, March 16, the Diocesan Shrine and Parish of Nuestra Senora de Aranzazu (DSPNSDA) held its first private mass in accordance with the pastoral statement released by the Archdiocese of Manila to cancel all public masses. This is to prevent the contagion of COVID-19 to a large congregation who will attend the mass every Sunday.
Despite the cancellation of public masses, the Catholic Church assures that masses will still be accessible to parishioners through an ongoing live streaming.
In our case, the private masses are scheduled at 6:00 in the evening every Monday to Saturday. While the Sunday mass is scheduled at 4:30 pm. To watch, follow the Parish’s Facebook page, Twitter account, and Youtube Channel to get notified everytime the private mass will go live.
We may not be attending masses in public, but there are still some guidelines that we must follow when we are attending online mass:
- Set up an altar consisting of a white cloth, crucifix, and candles.
- Foods, noise, smartphones, etc. are not allowed for these can cause distractions from the ongoing mass.
- In order to receive the Holy Communion, we must pray “The Act of Spiritual Communion”.
- Dress up appropriately.
- Just like in every public mass, we must watch, give response, listen respectfully, and communicate spiritually to God.
The Catholic church is doing its part to prevent the further spread of COVID-19 while making sure that nothing will set us apart from our faith in God especially during this crisis. Let us continue doing our part in praying for those who have been infected by the COVID-19 and most importantly, our frontliners who are risking their lives everyday to stop the pandemic.
