Dear Friends in Christ:

As we are still within the Great Fifty Days of Easter, I invite to view our online services on our website and Facebook page. As well, we have in Spanish, a praise service and reflections offered by Victoria and Mauricio Umana, lay leaders of our church. Our behavioral health therapist, Marisol Salgado, LPC is continuing to see clients via Telehealth (a secure app) and is offering mental health tips and resources online as well. The couple’s group is meeting via ZOOM and I am planning to begin a virtual bible study for those that are able to attend. Our parish administrator, Luisana Rivas is working virtually from her home. She has forwarded our office phone to her phone number and is receiving calls and messages as well as electronically through email. 

As things remain uncertain, and talk of “opening up the economy” is stirring, we are all wondering when will we be offering live church services? The answer remains unknown. Our bishop is on top of the latest health information made available by the Center for Disease Control and other responsible sources. He is communicating weekly to update clergy and churches on the latest news regarding health recommendations. He will make the proper announcement when it is safe for us to begin gathering once again. While we all yearn to gather, and we miss each other and church dearly, we must take every necessary precaution to keep our people and the community we live in, safe. 

My friends, this world wide pandemic has changed the way we relate and gather (virtually and spiritually). Like after 9/11 we never returned to be as we were, and embraced a “new normal”, so too now, we will be stretched to embrace another “new normal.” I do not know what that will look like, or how things may change in the way we gather and worship. I simply offer a reflection in saying that just like as Christians we seek to see Christ in our everyday dealings, joys and sufferings, so too now as well, I feel we are being called to seek Christ in new places and circumstances.

Now is the time to pray as perhaps never before! I invite you all to stop what you are doing and say a prayer for the end of Covid-19, a cure, for those who have died, for those who are infected with the virus and for those healthcare workers who put themselves in harm’s way to heal others. We are entering the dawn of a new age and time where Christ is being revealed in new ways. It has always been through the way of cross that we come to experience a new creation and a living hope. 

Faithfully yours in Christ,

Rev. Ed Gomez