St. Anne Catholic Church

Dear Parishioners, 

It seems like this pandemic will be with us for a while. Continue to pray that a vaccine will be discovered that is effective in ending this pandemic and we can get back to life as normal. Of course, pray that the development of this vaccine does not use any immoral means to develop. 

I am very pleased with those who continue to attend Mass in person. I have always felt a bit disappointed that we had to convince Catholics of the importance of Mass by placing it under the threat of mortal sin if one did not attend Mass. If we love God and understand the Mass, we should be willing to crawl on our knees to get to Mass and crawl down the aisle to receive Holy Communion worthily.  The obligation to attend Mass under the threat of mortal sin is like telling spouses they have to kiss each other once a week or else they commit a mortal sin. They should be kissing each other all the time without the threat of mortal sin looming over them!  The same is true for Mass. We should want to attend because we love God not because of the pain of mortal sin if we don’t. Of course when the obligation to attend Sunday Mass returns, which it will, we need to be aware of what a mortal sin is. As it pertain to missing Mass, it is a mortal sin because it is based upon the 3^rdCommandment to keep holy the Lord’s Day. Mass is the primary way we do that.  For a sin to be mortal, is must be serious. Of course breaking the 3^rd Commandment is very serious. Secondly, we must know it is wrong. I hope all Catholics know what the 3^rd Commandment is or I’ve done my job very poorly! And finally we commit the sin with full consent of the will and with foresight and planning.  We don’t commit mortal sins by accident or in a knee jerk response to some stimuli. Those would be venial sins even is the matter is serious. Full consent of the will and usually with foresight and planning in a serious matter constitutes a mortal sin

Of course we are taking precautions at our daily and Sunday Masses to make things as safe as possible including asking you to wear a mask and do physical distancing. 

I want to thank everyone for your on-going sacrificial gifts to the parish. We have seen a great increase in the use of the Our Sunday Visitor’s online giving program. It is so easy to sign up and set your own personal account and the manner in which you will give to the Sunday collection, second collections and our upcoming Capital Campaign to reduce our debt and enable  us to meet the $32,000 a month payment we have on our new church’s loan.  If you haven’t done so,  PLEASE SIGN UP FOR ON-LINE GIVING WITH “OUR SUNDAY VISITOR”  by going to our secure Our Sunday Visitor on-line giving and setting up your personal account. If you need help with that Sarah Thomas in our office can assist you. Email her or call her at the office during office hours. 

I know some of you are still fearful about attending Mass in public, although I think we are safer than going to Publix, Kroger’s, Food Lion, Walmart and sit down restaurants. Thus  We will continue to live-stream our daily Masses, and the 10:30 AM Sunday Mass.  You can still make a  “an Act of Spiritual Communion”, and "The Act of Perfect Contrition", from home until you can get to Confession, and Mass. God bless you.

Your pastor, 
Fr. Allan J. McDonald