It’s been a while so time for an update.

Our numbers in church attendance have been growing.  We take this as a sign of the importance that your faith plays in your life and the comfort level you have with how we are doing things here at St. Denis. Having said that, there are obviously a good number of people who have not come back to Mass yet because they are being cautious. Please don’t feel badly about doing so. Everyone needs to do what is right and best for themselves and their family. If you are not coming in person we hope that you are joining us for our livestream Mass at 10 am on Sundays or watching it sometime after that. It is posted on our parish website: stdenischurch.org.

Because our numbers are growing, we are using the parish center for a second Mass site a little more. We are consistently there for the overflow from the 10 am Mass and sometimes for the 8 am and 12 noon. Can we please ask a favor? It would be very helpful to us if you could be on time for Mass or even a little bit early. It is hard to know when we need to go to the parish center for that second Mass since we don’t want to have just two or three people there. We seem to be getting people coming in late more now (after we have started the Mass and the decision has been made not to go to the parish center) and so there are people standing together in the back, as socially distant as they can be. Having everyone here on time (or early) would help us in making our decision as to whether or not we need that second Mass. Thank you. We will also continue with the current Mass schedule for Sunday until further notice (5:00 PM Saturday and 8 am, 10 am and 12 noon on Sunday with the Spanish Mass at 5:00 pm Sunday evening).

When receiving Holy Communion, please leave your hands flat until after we have placed the host there. This will avoid us touching your hands when distributing the Eucharist.

We are still hearing confessions on the front porch of the rectory. It’s a nice spot and we will do so as long as we can. However, we don’t want anyone to be uncomfortable so that will change fairly soon. When it does we will move into the church and use the new wing for this Sacrament. We will close the sliding doors and sit towards the back, near the exit doors. If you are waiting for confession please stand by the front pew rather than by the opening of the sliding door to ensure the privacy of others. We will let you know when this change happens.

This year the St. Vincent dePaul Food Pantry will give out grocery store gift cards to their clients rather than food baskets for Thanksgiving. If you would like to donate towards this you can send a check made out to the St. Vincent dePaul Food Pantry c/o St. Columba Church, P.O. Box 428 Hopewell Junction, NY 12533. Thank you.

We are getting our plans together for Christmas. This is going to be somewhat difficult since we have no idea how many people will show up. Will people come to Mass because “It’s Christmas and I really want to go”...or will they feel that “Since it’s Christmas, there are going to be so many people there…I don’t what to take a chance”? Our plan is to have Mass in both the church and the parish center for all of our Masses, if needed. As we’ve been doing, when the church fills to the capacity that we can have there, we will direct everyone else to the parish center. Once the parish center has filled, we will have to turn away anyone who comes after that. We don’t want to, but we really don't have a choice. Please note that masks must be worn and social distance maintained throughout Mass.

Special permission has been granted this year for the parishes of the Archdiocese to begin Masses on Christmas Eve at 2:00 pm. This will help to spread out the large crowd that comes for that first Christmas Eve Mass. Our plan is to celebrate Masses at 2:00, 4:00, 6:00 and 11:00 pm (this will take the place of midnight Mass). There will also be a Mass at 7:30 pm in Spanish. Masses on Christmas Day will be at 8:00, 10:00 and 12:00 noon. Again, if any Masses fill in the church, a second Mass will be held in the parish center starting about 10 minutes later. If there is any change in this schedule we will let you know at that time.

In addition to having the weekly bulletin available at Mass, we also post it on our parish website. Please look at it periodically so that you know what is going on here at St. Denis. We are slowly starting up some of our parish activities.

Thank you to our greeters who have been helping with the seating arrangements in the church and parish center. Just a reminder that we ask you to be here 30 minutes before Mass begins to help with this. If you are assigned for the parish center Mass, 15 minutes beforehand will be good.

As always, we hope that you are all doing well and staying safe. Know that you are in our prayers.

Fr. Bob