Mass in the Age of Social Distancing

Today over my lunch break, Travalon and I went to our parish church for an intimate little Mass with four other people. I know one of them, I see one in the adoration chapel all the time, and two appeared to be a mother and son, neither of which I recognized. We had to go in a side door, up some steps, and through the sacristy, I guess to keep the riffraff out. With our parish priest and the two servers, there were nine of us there, which may be the maximum for a public gathering these days. It was a simple weekday Mass (although today is a minor feast day, for St. Joseph the Worker), and there was no music except a little chanting of the ordinary. Still, I really liked it. I wondered if these small groups were what the early Christians usually experienced, in those adorable tiny Greek Orthodox churches we saw in places like Thessaloniki and Athens when I was there in college for a Byzantine art history course. It did seem funny to have so few people in our church, which is by no means huge but is definitely meant to hold over a hundred worshipers at a time. We used to have a chapel downstairs where little Masses (like a small wedding) could be held, but now it's the adoration chapel, which of course is in use now... and fairly popular, since it is the one religious place people can go to. Of course, with the social distancing rules, maybe we would have had to have this Mass up in the nave anyway, since we all had to stay away from each other. No sign of the peace for us! But we did get to receive the Eucharist for the first time in weeks. Guess I don't need to pray my Blessed Sacrament chaplet for spiritual communion today!

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