Mass in a time of Coronavirus

Westminster’s Cardinal Vincent Nichols has said that to help protect priests and people during the coronavirus epidemic, churches in England and Wales are preparing to suspend the celebration of Masses with congregations.

[Edit: As of Friday evening, 20 March 2020, there will be no public Masses celebrated in England and Wales until further notice. For more information visit the Catholic Bishop’s Conference of England and Wales]

One Scottish Catholic church – St Augustine’s in Coatbridge – has already gone into lockdown after a young parishioner who had attended Mass there in recent days tested positive for Covid-19, while across the Irish Sea bishops have lifted the obligation on Catholics to attend Sunday Masses and many churches have ceased public celebrations of Mass.

Speaking on Saturday on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Cardinal Nichols said the Church in England and Wales has been following official government advice and was prepared to ratchet up any-contagion measures further by celebrating Masses behind closed doors. “We can stream these celebrations and then people can join in and follow Mass through that virtual link,” the Archbishop of Westminster continued.

Ahead of the interview, the Bishops’ Conference on England and Wales had issued guidance for churches in ‘Stage Two’ of coronavirus prevention, with a frequently asked questions section about how this might play out on the ground. In a letter to priests of his diocese, Cardinal Nichols underlined the need to have “a special concern for the elderly”.

“In these matters, we must be guided by official advice, based on the best scientific evidence, and not by personal opinion,” he wrote, pointing out that the elderly are a “treasure” who enrich the lives and wisdom of others, and who must be nurtured and protected “especially at this time of extraordinary challenge”. 

Receiving communion in our hands and our hearts

Calling for priests to encourage parishioners to receive Holy Communion in the hand rather than on the tongue, he added that while parishioners do have a right to receive the host on the tongue, canon law also requires that they “take into account the common good of the Church, the rights of others and their own duties towards others”. He outlined circumstances under which priests might discretely give Holy Communion on the tongue, noting that “If members of the faithful find this unacceptable, then please do encourage them to make a spiritual communion, explaining what is meant by that.”

Spiritual communion was once defined by St Thomas Aquinas as “an ardent desire to receive Jesus in the Most Holy Sacrament and in lovingly embracing Him as if we had actually received Him”. One way of doing is by sincerely praying the following prayer by St Alphonsus Liguori:

“My Jesus, I believe that you are present in the most Blessed Sacrament. I love you above all things and I desire to receive you into my soul. Since I cannot now receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. I embrace you as if you were already there, and unite myself wholly to you. Never permit me to be separated from you. Amen.”

Cardinal Nichols also urged clergy to encourage people to stay at home and not attend Mass if they felt unwell or had symptoms of cold or flu, and concluded with a note of concern for priests, many of whom are in “the more vulnerable age group”.  He urged them to look after themselves and to pray for each other, for those caring for the sick, and for those working on treatments and vaccines for Covid-19.

Speaking on Radio 4, the cardinal said that even if churches did end up suspending Masses with congregations, based on advice about not allowing large numbers of people to gather together, churches could Livestream services and would, in any case, remain open for personal prayer.

“Even if the priest is there with one helper, we can stream them and people can join in from home and gather if they wish on a Sunday to follow the Mass and say their prayers together,” he said, maintaining that aside from during celebrations “churches are places where people can pray and there’s no health risk”.

“The presence of the church and the space that it offers will be very important in the coming months,” he said, also stressing that priests would continue to play a key role during the crisis, including visiting sick and dying Catholics.

 “It is possible to continue with it”, he said, explaining that this was based on official advice about not spreading the virus.

“We will visit people in their homes taking the right kind of precautions. In very extreme circumstances that physical presence might be impossible but for the vast majority we will be able to bring that comfort and consolation of the life after death that awaits us all.”

Prayers with the Pope

In emphasising the need of clergy to remain close to people at this time of crisis, the cardinal’s advice is similar to that of Pope Francis, who in his 15 March Angelus address praised the creativity of priests  “who think of a thousand ways to be with the people so that the people don’t feel alone”.

Such men, he said, are “priests with apostolic zeal who understand that in times of pandemic, you shouldn’t be Don Abbondio,” he said, referring to a hesitant and cowardly character in Alessandro Manzoni’s classic novel The Betrothed. The Pope has read Manzoni’s novel several times, and it is frequently thought that his call for the Church to be a field hospital for the world is rooted in the novel’s description of a lazaretto, a field hospital for victims of plague. 

“In this pandemic situation, in which we find ourselves living more or less isolated, we are invited to rediscover and deepen the value of the communion that unites all members of the Church,” the Pontiff said.

“United with Christ we are never alone, but we form a single body, of which he is the head. It is a union that is nourished with prayer, and also with spiritual communion in the Eucharist, a highly recommended practice when it is not possible to receive the sacrament. I say this for everyone, especially for people who live alone.”

Coming at the end of a week where public Masses were suspended in Rome and the Vatican announced that even Pope Francis’ Holy Week celebrations would take place without congregations, before revising this to say that the matter was still under consideration, the Pope’s call for Church solidarity followed a letter from his secretary Fr Yoannis Lahzi Gaid warning clergy against “behaving more like wage-earners than as pastors”.  Fr Gaid said that priests should be on “the front line,” available to people seeking support and courage during the pandemic.

Over 1,800 people have died in Italy from the coronavirus in recent weeks, with six priests having died and 20 been hospitalised in the northern city of Bergamo. 

Glimpses of what’s coming next

In Ireland, bishops had hardly issued guidelines for celebrating Mass during the pandemic before new guidelines had to be issued in light of government restrictions banning indoor gatherings of 100 people or more.

The new guidelines cancelled all non-essential pastoral gatherings, postponed Confirmation ceremonies, and asked for attendance at funerals, weddings, and baptisms to be reduced. Dispensing people from their duty to attend Sunday Mass, the bishops said:

“In the current emergency situation, all are dispensed from the obligation to physically attend Sunday Mass.  Parishes should inform parishioners of the local possibilities to participate in Mass via local radio and online.  It may be possible for some parishes to facilitate attendance at Mass while still observing the health authority’s limit of 100 people.”

Since then bishop after bishop has ruled that – given the difficulty in limiting congregation sizes – all Masses or all Sunday Masses would have to take place behind closed doors, with celebrations being broadcast online if possible to allow parishioners to participate and make spiritual communion remotely. At the same time, bishops have urged that “while Masses are suspended, the voice of prayer should not be silent”, and said that “while many are tempted to fear, people of faith can use this crisis to pray and strengthen their relationship with God”.  

These days and weeks, one has stressed, are “a time for us to be in prayerful solidarity with each other”. 

“Just as our Lenten penance is meant to deepen our relationship with God and our solidarity with all who suffer as the Lord did, we can allow these sacrifices and inconveniences in our daily lives to direct our prayers toward those who have died and their loved ones, our attention toward those who are ill or facing financial hardship, our tendrils of compassion to move, invisibly, where we cannot touch, and our collective actions toward strengthening the common good,” Bishop Dermot Farrell said in a homily this weekend. “The Coronavirus poses a threat that knows no borders. As people of faith, neither does our love and concern for our neighbours.”