14 Oct CBCP Encourages Public To Return To Sunday Masses In Churches
Mga higala! The Catholic Bishops’ Conference of the Philippines (CBCP) has released a memo aiming to urge the faithful to return to the Sunday masses in churches all over the country!
According to the said memo or circular, since the COVID-19 pandemic has weakened and health experts have now implemented more relaxed health protocols, everyone is now permitted and obliged to “return to the normality of Christian life”.
With this in mind, all local ordinaries are now encouraged to:
1. We strongly encourage our faithful to return to the Sunday Eucharist with a purified heart, renewed amazement, and increased desire to meet the Lord, to be with him, to receive him and bring him to our brothers and sisters with the witness of a life full of faith, love, and hope.
2. We evaluate and study the needed frequency of celebrations of the Holy Eucharist by live streaming. Greater coordination in the diocese is needed on this issue. In view of this, we keep in mind the Letter of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments to all the bishops, saying: “As much as the means of communication perform a valued service to the sick and those who are unable to go to church and have performed a great service in the broadcast of Holy Mass at a time when there was no possibility of community celebrations, no broadcast is comparable to personal participation or can replace it. On the contrary, these broadcasts alone risk distancing us from a personal and intimate encounter with the incarnate God who gave himself to us not in a virtual way, but really, saying: “He who eats my flesh and drinks my blood remains in me and I in him” (In 6:56). “This physical contact with the Lord is vital, indispensable, irreplaceable” (CDWDS, “Let us return to the Eucharist with joy!”, Letter to all the bishops, 3 September 2020)
3. Health protocols are still to be implemented. We make sure that our faithful are convinced that they are safe in our churches and venues for liturgical celebrations.
4. The “Act of Spiritual Communion” is a devotional prayer. It is not a liturgical prayer, therefore it should not be prayed aloud when communion is received by the faithful in attendance in our celebrations. The “Act of Spiritual Communion” is intended for those who are following the celebration online. It is better projected on the screen for those following the Mass online.
5. The constant catechesis on the necessity of our faithful to return to our churches for the Sunday Eucharist should be explained in our homilies and in our catechesis.
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Source: CBCP News
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