[Magdalen] Arrow prayer request

[Scott Knitter]

Right now we're struggling a bit with maintaining a daily Mass
schedule with fewer and fewer people attending. As happens lately in
other Anglo-Catholic parishes as well, daily Mass is considered a
hallmark of Anglo-Catholic practice but few see fit to attend even
occasionally. There's of course flack when some days go Mass-less due
to clergy vacations, but then if a priest is procured from another
parish, or a retired priest, to keep daily Mass going while the rector
is away, attendance is even less, or zero, and the priest often can't
even start Mass because there's no one else there.

One person can pray the daily office in church on behalf of the whole
parish, but you can't do that with Mass. People gotta be there. As a
friend in London told his parishioners after one of those "Father's
away, so we won't be in church today" episodes, "If you consider
yourselves Catholic, live like it," which means getting to Mass
regularly and sometimes on weekdays when possible (ideally on a
regular plan: once a week, daily, once a month, whatever). It'll
rarely be a big crowd on a weekday, but two or three are
sufficient...and the more the better, of course.

Our place needs to do better with making the church look like it's
open and something's going on inside.

On Thu, Dec 1, 2016 at 10:46 PM, James Oppenheimer-Crawford
<oppenheimerjw at gmail.com> wrote:
> I thought it was just the one person. We had daily office and various
> leaders were scheduled for it. For some time, it ended up being only the
> leader, and we finally gave up. There's never been interest in those daily
> office things. Even Bible study was difficult. Some would love it, but over
> time, folks had other things that took up their time.  You make time for
> what's important. Nuf said.




-- 
Scott R. Knitter
Edgewater, Chicago, Illinois USA