Grace and Peace to You…
Due to COVID restrictions and winter, you are instead warmly invited to tune into St. Paul’s Facebook page every Sunday at 9:30am for Holy Eucharist online…
The mortality rate of this virus for at-risk individuals is serious business, and the Episcopal Church has many at-risk parishioners (and clergy for that matter!) in its ranks, whether for reasons of age or pre-existing conditions. Both the severity of this illness and advice from medical professionals has prompted our Bishop (and other Bishops throughout the Episcopal Church) to institute the following guidelines, which the Minnesota diocese is also prayerfully following:
A parish may not re-open for public worship of any kind until the 7-day COVID-19 positivity rate for your parish’s County and the State have both been trending under 5%.
If you’re curious, the last official check had Winona County at 3.3% and the State at 5.2%. Until those aforementioned numbers are achieved, St. Paul’s will continue to do what it has been doing since before it had a building to its name: Proclaiming Christ in Word and Sacrament for the life of the world.
The vestry and I will be reaching out to and working with some of the internet-less people in our parish family. They are not and will not be forgotten amidst these changes. They will be given physical copies of the homilies and myself or one of our Eucharistic Ministers will bring them the Blessed Sacrament with all the requisite health precautions taking place.
I hope to see you in the Spirit this Sunday at 9:30am. Till then and beyond, let us hold each other, our selves, and this world we all share, lightly…lightly…lightly.
Yours in Christ,
J+