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Alicia Orellana, center, came to the 10:30 a.m. Mass at St. Raphael Church on March 15 with her three children. (Photo by Christina Gray/Catholic San Francisco)
Updated March 16, 2020, 8:35 p.m.
March 15, 2020
Christina Gray
Catholic San FranciscoThe Sunday 10:30 a.m. Mass at St. Raphael Church was one hour Alicia Orellana was not going to surrender to the coronavirus.
The San Rafael mother of three talked to Catholic San Francisco on the steps of the sandy pink stucco church in downtown San Rafael after the sparsely attended Mass ended. Like most but not all parishes in the archdiocese, no regular Masses at St. Raphael have been cancelled.
Orellana said her family is taking all the recommended precautions in their daily lives, but attending Sunday Mass together was very important to them.
"We love God, and we are not afraid," she said. "We are also praying for all of the people who are sick and have died."Just feet away, a well-attended Brazilian Mass was underway in the smaller Mission San Rafael Arcangel chapel adjacent to the church. The mission was founded in 1817 as a hospital outpost of Mission Dolores and named for St. Raphael, the angel of healing. A replica of the original chapel was later built on its ruins.
Between the church and smaller chapel, the parish offers 19 Masses each week in English, Spanish, Brazilian and Vietnamese.
Orellana was one of a few dozen people who attended the 10:30 Mass celebrated by parochial vicar Father Wade Bjerke. The priest never mentioned the virus by name but addressed its possible impact on the faith community at the beginning of Mass.
"We are working closely with the archdiocese to mimimize contact in our gatherings," he said. "We really don't want to have to close down our churches on Sundays."
He announced what would be visible changes to the liturgy particularly in the processional, recessional and preparation of the gifts.
"This is all with the idea to keep the churches open and to keep the Sunday Masses intact," said Father Bjerke.Other than the sight of tiny bottles of hand sanitizer being removed from pockets and purses and passed discreetly between spouses or famlilies, there were few if any outward signs of the anxiety gripping many of those outside church doors.
The faithful nodded and waved in lieu of the sign of peace and normal numbers of communicants lined up to receive the consecrated body, but not blood, of Christ.
A woman named Rita, who offered only her first name as she exited the Mass, admitted she is in a vulnerable age group and stood at a distance while she talked.
“I came to counterbalance all the fear and hate going on in the world right now,” she said.
In what would turn out to be the last Sunday before health officials ordered drastic social distancing measures in the Bay Area and churches shut down, some pastors in the archdiocese maintained their Mass schedules, some cut back and at least one, Father Felix Lim at St. Anthony in Novato, suspended Masses.
“We are literally at war” with the virus, he said in a March 12 message posted on the parish website. The church has many vulnerable people and there is no safe way to distribute Communion, he said. “I have a moral responsibility to protect your physical as well as spiritual health,” he said.
Some pastors encouraged the faithful to find solace in the day’s Gospel reading. When Jesus and the Samaritan Woman meet at Jacob’s Well in John’s Gospel, both are thirsty, said Father Arnold Zamora, pastor of Holy Name of Jesus Parish in San Francisco.
“We have to see ourselves in the person of the Samaritan Woman,” he said. “She embodied all human beings thirsting for God. She represents our thirst for forgiveness and reconciliation.”
In the pandemic crisis, “We are thirsting for solutions,” he said.
“Let this time to thirst for God, to get in spiritual communion with him,” Father Zamora said. “Give time and attention to every member of our family who is thirsting for our time and presence,” because we have often taken them for granted.
“Remember that Jesus sits with us in our Jacob’s Well,” he said. “He will quench our thirst. He will dispel the dakrness of our days and our broken world ,because Jesus is also searching for us.”
At St. Hilary Parish in Tiburon, pastor Father William Brown shared words of inspiration with his flock in a social media post March 16.
“Some people have asked about faith, prayer, and staying close to God and God's people during this crisis: fortunately, we can do much of this even at home, thanks to spiritual reading (I have plunged into books people gave me some time ago, but I "didn't have the time for" until now), online resources of prayer and Mass, and personal prayer which for many is neglected in our very overscheduled lives,” Father Brown wrote.
“Families have told me how they are connecting now with everyone at home, baking, doing board games, cleaning, and using this time of lockdown to strengthen their bonds of fellowship which also doing something productive: this includes more family prayer time, talking about issues of faith, and sharing stories of life without being able to say, ‘Oops: too busy!’” he said.
“If cloistered nuns and monks are able to stay faithful, prayerful and productive even when isolated from the world," Father Brown said, "so can we!”