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May God's Grace Be With You
PLEASE READ THE PASTORS LETTER- CLICK HERE
Parish News
Our plans are to offer approximately 100 people entry to the church for the 9:00 Mass each week, starting this Sunday, June 7th.
Please be assured that we are profoundly serious about maintaining the health and safety of our parishioners, staff and volunteers. We ask that you comply with our process if you are coming to Mass to help us with this.
We strongly encourage people in vulnerable populations, especially the elderly and those with complicated physical conditions, to continue to watch Mass from their homes, LIVE on our parish’s Facebook page, our Website, and DCAT, or later in the day on our YouTube channel.
So that we can maintain proper protocols with regard to social distancing, we will ask you to sign up online or by phone. We will be registering those wishing to attend online by clicking here.
If you know someone who wants to attend and doesn’t have the internet, they can call the office at 978.774.7575 Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday and register there.
We would prefer not to tie up the phones, so please use the link if you can.
What guidelines do parishioners need to observe while in church?
If parishioners can bring their own bottle of hand sanitizer to the church, they should. Otherwise, they can use sanitizer provided by the parish and positioned at the entry to the church.
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Everyone entering the Church will need to wear masks.
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There will be no social gatherings either before or after Mass.
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There will be no offertory procession or collection. Please drop your donation in the basket upon entering or use our Online Donation app on our website.
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There will be no altar servers.
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The bathroom should be used only if extremely necessary.
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Congregational singing will not be allowed. All hymnals and missalettes have been removed from the church.
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There should be no holding of hands during the Our Father.
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There will be no invitation to participate in a sign of peace.
In the sanctuary, the priest, and the lector will respect strict social distancing. They will not wear masks in the sanctuary unless they are closer than 6 feet apart.
For the distribution of Holy Communion:
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Communion will be distributed from the back of the church as you leave Mass. Row by row exiting, starting from the back, will be directed by the trained volunteers.
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Parishioners may well decide not to receive Holy Communion if they feel the risk is too high, and that decision will be honored and respected.
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The communicants and the priest will wear masks.
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Neither the priest nor the communicants should wear gloves during the distribution of Holy Communion.
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The priest will hold the consecrated host over the communicants’ outstretched hands and drop the host into their hands without touching their hands.
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Communicants will receive the consecrated host in their hands, exit the church, lower their mask, consume the host, and proceed to their car.
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In the case of unintentional contact, the priest will sanitize his own hands immediately.
As much as each of us wants to be in the Lord’s house once again and receiving the Holy Eucharist, we must not be selfish, and must continue to think of how we can help protect others from this pandemic.
As a reminder, Cardinal Sean has continued the dispensation from the obligation to attend Mass for all Roman Catholics in the Archdiocese of Boston for the foreseeable future.
May God continue to bless you,
NEWCOMERS -- WELCOMING YOU HOME
Welcome to our parish website, the online face of our parish. Whether you’re just visiting us for a brief time, looking for a new parish home, are returning to the practice of your Catholic faith or are interested in finding out more about the Catholic Church, we’re happy to have you here. St. Richard’s is a welcoming, supportive and loving community. It can be a place to grow spiritually, to put your faith into action, and to use your gifts of time, talent and treasure as disciples of Christ. We hope you find the information here useful and are drawn to a deeper connection with our parish family. Please refer to the parish calendar for events at the parish, the bulletin and our Facebook page for events that go even beyond our parish. We look forward to answering any questions you may have, so please feel free to reach out to us. In the meantime, please look through the resources we’ve made available on these pages:
Join Our Parish
We are delighted to have you join us, and we hope you will become an active part of our Parish Family.
Become A Catholic
Saint Richard Parish provides an ongoing process for those interested in finding out more about becoming a member of the Catholic Church
The Catholic Church is the largest Christian denomination in the United States, accounting for about 25 percent of the country’s population
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OUR PARISH MISSION & VISION
"Our parish is a community of the People of God joined together by our common faith in Jesus Christ as expressed through our baptismal commitment. While our parish is rooted in a particular locality, we also recognize that we belong to the Archdiocese of Boston and through the Archdiocese to the Universal Church. That is why our parish of St. Richard is called to be the center and source of our faith and it's development, an extended family that is to be marked by a sense of belonging, a desire for participation, a need for commitment and a spirit of WELCOME. We celebrate all of this when we gather at the Eucharistic table of the Lord each Sunday.
As we journey together let us all pray that we will continue to deepen our dedication to and support of the members of the People of God." - Father Bruce