Feast Of The Most Holy Body And Blood Of Christ

In the celebration of the Eucharist (Holy Mass), bread and wine become the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit and the instrumentality of the priest. The whole CHRIST is truly present—BODY, BLOOD, SOUL, and DIVINITY—under the appearances of bread and wine, the glorified Christ who rose from the dead. The Catholic Church teaches that the Risen Christ is fully present under either species of Holy Communion. This is what the Church means when she speaks of the “REAL PRESENCE OF CHRIST” in Holy Communion.

As we are all aware, when the COVID-19 pandemic began in early 2020, various restrictions were put in place across the Archdiocese of St. Louis to help stop the spread of the virus. One of those restrictions was the stopping of the use of the common chalice for the faithful.

On this Feast of Corpus Christi, Archbishop Rozanski has asked each pastor in the Archdiocese to make a responsible decision which is prudent for the local situation regarding the return of the common chalice. I have consulted with medical and scientific experts on Covid, and based on their risk assessments and advice, have decided at this time to postpone resumption of the common chalice.

All Things New - Strategic Pastoral Planning

I hope that you were able to read Archbishop Rozanski’s column from the Faith St. Louis magazine that I re-printed in our parish bulletin for the last two weekends. The Archbishop directly responded to “Addressing some of the rumors around “ALL THINGS NEW.”

As I have shared in previous bulletins, Annunziata had 370 people fill out the surveys which gathered information on our parish. Our parish committee has held one virtual zoom meeting and three in person meetings to go over the results and then submit our review to the Archdiocesan Committee. The results will be shared with the parish later this summer.

All Things New is to enable a vibrant Catholic presence throughout the Archdiocese for future generations. It is a multi-year process of prayer, evangelization, and re-organization of parishes and schools. Following the surveys, new models for spreading the Gospel will be proposed for the best use of the resources of the Archdiocese. Please, visit the website: www.allthingsnew.archstl.org