Dear Saint Anna’s Community:
Our challenges continue and as we are learning this endemic will have variants and suges and one can only suspect that this phenomena will continue. So, adaptive responses are becoming a part of our common life.
One of those responses is “virtual church” in that we use Facebook and perhaps down the road Youtube may be our central focus. Since 2020 much discussion amongst clergy and academicas, vestries and worship committees have argued for various forms of worship to meet a virtual community. Some say no Eucharist because we are distant; others hold that it is our central act and present or not it is what we want; still others say one of the Daily Offices are perfect. One can end up chasing one’s tail.
Asking Saint Anna’s community what it wants is also problematic. To be honest our community is not the best at seeking out or offering information and thoughts on this or other subjects. We are an existential lot for sure. We experience each other perhaps more than we communicate. Shortly I/we plan to send out one or two surveys. One will be designed to describe what we are, what we want, and how we understand ourselves. The other, a shorter survey, will ask what kind of worship do you want? Both in person and virtually. How can our worship best serve.
Virtual worship offers much to a diaspora of seekers and the faithful. It can reach far afield as our metrics indicate. That said it also inhibits the usual “Sunday Giving.” We will therefore initiate a QR
Code as a way of asking for your virtual support. Giving is a part of our worship and a part of the Christian life. Matthew 6:21, “For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”
Finally, I am attaching two missals that we may use this Sunday. One is our usual Sunday Missal for this Season the other is Benediction of the Blessed Sacrament which may follow our Liturgy of the Word. I look forward to engage you in a number of new and innovative ways. Let’s stay together and pray together. Fr. Bill+