Talking Can Generate Coronavirus Droplets That Linger Up to 14 Minutes
NYT: A new study shows how respiratory droplets produced during normal conversation may be just as important in transmitting disease, especially indoors.
The research, published Wednesday in The Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, could help explain how people with mild or no symptoms may infect others in close quarters such as offices, nursing homes, cruise ships and other confined spaces. The study’s experimental conditions will need to be replicated in more real-world circumstances, and researchers still don’t know how much virus has to be transmitted from one person to another to cause infection. But its findings strengthen the case for wearing masks and taking other precautions in such environments to reduce the spread of the coronavirus.
1. Certainly this study seems to rule out congregational singing during Mass
2. It also seems to rule out congregational recitation of any of the prayers unless they are wearing high quality masks.
3. It also questions the social distance rule of 6 feet which has been interpreted here in this diocese as 50% occupancy.
What is Active Participation in the Pandemic Situation?
Staying at home and participating in a Live Stream Mass actually may offer greater active participation than putting ourselves and others at risk by going to church as passive viewers.
1. Except for communion, Livestreaming at home offers people the possibility of as much participation as takes place in World Youth Day Masses. There the images and sounds of the ministers are amplified by jumbotrons and speakers. However what people mostly experience are the people that immediately surround them. From the comfort of my Great Room and very large TV size monitor I probably know, understand and participate in what take place in the sanctuary far better than most of people at these large gathering perhaps even better than those who have front row seats. Of course I can also sing and pray with those around me in my own home. All this can be augmented by worship aides, hymnals, etc.
2. It is also possible to join together with others in other houses by means of phone, e-mail, text messages, etc. I have actually done this. Simply call the person up before the Mass. You can have all the chit chat etc. you might have had at the parish. Then of course as the Live Mass starts everyone gets silent. If you sing across an open phone line however there is likely to be slight delay so I usually turn the phone volume down so that I know the other person is singing but not exactly what they are singing. Then you can discuss the homily, music etc. after the Mass. At home Masses offer a lot more opportunity for full participation because everyone on the conference call has focused on the Mass more than each other's behavior.
3. Before and After Mass offers great opportunities for prayer, scripture study, etc. The parish website could be full of these, allowing each person and household to tailor things to their own needs.
Reinventing Household Churches?
(Household churches are NOT the same as family churches. Household is an economic unit. Just as there are single person households there are single person household churches!)
Scholars have long known that the churches of the first several centuries were household churches, i.e. people gathered in the home of one of their wealthier members.
In fact the beginning of Mark's gospel portrays this when Jesus calls two sets of brothers to set aside the preoccupation with the family businesses and "follow him." Unfortunately we tend to interpret this as meaning that left their households. Actually what we find is that immediately after Jesus preaches in the synagogue the two sets of brothers join with Jesus at Peter's house which became the place were he centered his ministry. Jesus also centered much of his ministry in Mark's Gospel on the seashore which was part of the family businesses.
When Constantine began building basilicas and cathedrals it did not end the household churches. Scholars have found much evidence for household churches in later centuries. They were centers for visiting monks and for relics as well as for women who become solitaries in their inner rooms. Bishops very much approved of these women and encouraged them to pray at home rather than come to the church services.
Early Monasticism is also best understood as an offspring of the house churches. When monks left for the desert that carried much of the heritage of the house churches which read scripture (OT, Psalms, NT) before the Eucharist. The monks did not take with them the cathedral offices of Morning and Evening prayer with their lights, incense and fixed psalms. Rather they prayed the psalms and read scripture much like the house churches did before Eucharist. Solitaries acted as single person house churches, prizing their cells, maintaining daily prayer, and offering hospitality to visitors.
When Constantine began building basilicas and cathedrals it did not end the household churches. Scholars have found much evidence for household churches in later centuries. They were centers for visiting monks and for relics as well as for women who become solitaries in their inner rooms. Bishops very much approved of these women and encouraged them to pray at home rather than come to the church services.
Early Monasticism is also best understood as an offspring of the house churches. When monks left for the desert that carried much of the heritage of the house churches which read scripture (OT, Psalms, NT) before the Eucharist. The monks did not take with them the cathedral offices of Morning and Evening prayer with their lights, incense and fixed psalms. Rather they prayed the psalms and read scripture much like the house churches did before Eucharist. Solitaries acted as single person house churches, prizing their cells, maintaining daily prayer, and offering hospitality to visitors.
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ReplyDeleteFr. Imbelli had a short article in C'weal about how the pandemic changed life in a monastery where he works.
ReplyDeleteBishop here will call for compulsory Mass attendance to begin in July. That strikes me as arbitrary and premature, especially since the number of people who attend will be restricted and no one knows if the infection rates here will continue to go down or will rise as things open up.
If he compels in your diocese, you maybe could follow the dispensation of a bishop from another diocese? Someone should put a team of canon lawyers on the question. Someone should put all the canon lawyers on that question, keep them out of trouble. I won't accept any outside compulsion on when to go back, and I doubt any outside compeller would have a leg to stand on in this life or the next.
Delete"Bishop here will call for compulsory Mass attendance to begin in July." Just...no. Can't we lose the "compulsory" thing? Leave it up to people's discretion. They'll go when they feel safe. If they don't take seriously the commitment to worship, how much good does it do to guilt them into it?
DeleteOK, my bad for trusting news reporting, which said Mass would become compulsory in July. The presser from the diocese actually said, "The obligation upon all Catholics to attend Sunday Mass remains suspended across the Diocese of Lansing until, at least, July 31."
Deletehttps://www.dioceseoflansing.org/news/return-m ass-guidelines-published-diocese-lansing
Jean I wasn't arguing with your terminology. Just expressing frustration with the PTB trying to compel attendance and possibly endangering people.
DeleteJack, neither of those options provides for Communion. What I have been hearing is, "I sure miss the Eucharist." But for the Church's first 19 centuries the unwashed laity communicated only once a year, roughly, as a rule. The more clerically besotted would say he Church started going to hell when the laity began approaching the altar regularly. If the new normal becomes livestream or household churches, it won't be as big a jolt to Church history as it may be to some Church members.
ReplyDeleteMy parish resumes weekly Masses on the 25th and Sunday Masses on the 31st. I'll probably reconnoiter one of the daily Masses, but you won't see me on Sunday until Dr. Fauci says "go" or Gov. DeSantis gets his Ph.d in epidemiology.
Tom, my understanding was that in the early church, everyone received Communion at the Eucharistic celebrations (keeping in mind that catechumens not yet admitted did not attend the full service). The clericalism thing gradually took hold until at the 4th Lateran Council in 1215, it was deemed necessary to make the Easter Duty rule, since a lot of people weren't even going to Communion once a year.
DeleteIn the early church, people also took the consecrated bread home with them and communicated during the week. There were naturally some abuses so eventually this was forbidden.
DeleteOK, not the whole 1900 years. But most of them between, say, 400 and 1905.
Delete