Director of Office of Worship addresses ‘Post-COVID liturgy’

POST-PANDEMIC LITURGY  Father Jared Brogan, director of the diocesan Office of Worship, speaks on “ ‘Post-COVID Liturgy’: What’s New? What’s the Same? What’s the Difference?” Oct. 5 in St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization here. It was first in a series of five workshops about various topics related to worship and liturgy called “Winding Thru Worship,” being held at St. Paul’s at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays until Nov. 9.

MADISON  As state-mandated COVID-19 restrictions are being eased, Masses at parishes across the Diocese are coming fully back to life. Many of the traditional rituals of Mass are returning, such as choirs and congregations singing hymns, which had been prohibited earlier, and shaking hands at the Sign of Peace, which was replaced with a socially distant wave of the hand, Father Jared Brogan, director of the diocesan Office of Worship, said.

Father Brogan suggested that, going forward, parishes should adopt a hybrid approach to their liturgies in his talk, “ ‘Post-COVID Liturgy’: What’s New? What’s the Same? What’s the Difference?” on Oct. 5 at St. Paul Inside the Walls: the Diocesan Center for Evangelization here. He said parishes should embrace some of the initiatives that worked in the pandemic, such as “digital evangelization” that reached the faithful, while reclaiming what was lost from the pre-COVID-19 liturgy, such as a sense of community and the meaning of its rituals. In his talk, Father Brogan explored how the pandemic prompted adaptations to Catholic worship, specifically changes that the faithful have become accustomed to in the liturgy.

“Parishes are making individual decisions [about the COVID-19 safety precautions that they will continue to follow] based on guidance from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and State guidelines but they are getting their parishioners to come back to Mass in Church,” said Father Brogan. The priest made it clear to the people in attendance that night — priests, parish staffers, and parishioners — that the pandemic continues and it is not over. The talk, he said, imagines parishes in a post-COVID-19 future. “People need the ritual of the Mass, receiving of the Eucharist, the singing and the social aspect: worshipping together,” he said.

Father Brogan added, “Adaptations to the liturgy were made for a good reason: concern for other people, even if they weren’t always good principles of liturgy. In the future, these adaptations can co-exist with the pre-COVID Mass in a hybrid form.”

Father Brogan’s presentation was the first of five workshops on various topics related to worship and liturgy, called “Winding Thru Worship,” being held at 7 p.m. on Tuesdays at St. Paul’s until Nov. 9. The result of a partnership between Father Brogan and Preston Dibble, diocesan music director, these sessions are intended for clergy, religious, and laity, who serve in various capacities and ministries, many of which have been returning to life this fall.

On Oct. 12, Dibble continued the series with “Praying the Antiphons” and will present “A Fulfilling Choir Rehearsal” on Oct. 26. Father Brogan will finish “Winding thru Worship” with “Liturgical Movement v. Liturgical Reform” on Nov. 2 and “Baptism: Called by Name to Discipleship Confirma­tion: Sent Out as Missionary Disciples” on Nov. 9.

In his “Post-COVID Liturgy” presentation, Father Brogan noted that the state-mandated precautions changed our lives dramatically — our family lives, professional lives, social lives, and religious lives. Parishes had a bevy of restrictions and limits placed on worship, including the closing of churches for the first three months of the pandemic; social distancing and limited capacity in the church, when they reopened; wearing of facemasks; and bans on shaking hands for the Sign of Peace, receiving the Precious Blood, and singing hymns. Parishes also shortened their liturgies and offered livestreamed Masses, he said.

“Digital evangelization with the virtual Masses was good, because parishes met the people where they were in the pandemic,” said Father Brogan, former pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Parish in Mountain Lakes. If a parish’s virtual outreach was meaningful, then parishioners responded by tuning in to online Masses and contributing to the collection. “Now many parishes have cut back on their virtual Masses or called them ‘Masses for Shut-Ins’ to encourage parishioners to come back to church,” the priest said.

These restrictions also took an “emotional toll” on many of the faithful, who became isolated from their parish communities, during the pandemic. Many people postponed weddings and funerals, Father Brogan said.

“God made us to be in relationship with others, not to be alone. Being apart is unnatural. There is a communal aspect to Mass. The liturgy is the place to come together to worship God,” said Father Brogan, whose insights were in part inspired by the work of Father Paul Turner, director of the Office of Divine Worship for the Diocese of Kansas City, Mo., and pastor of the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception there.

“When we sing at Mass, we are lifting our voices together in praising God,” Father Brogan said. These restrictions also caused theological consequences: “taking something away from who we are and what we are doing and from the sacramental rituals that we consider sacred,” Father Brogan said. These included receiving the Eucharist. Also lost was the meaning of the Communion procession, where we “come to the altar, the place of sacrifice to receive the bread of the Lamb.” The faithful also could not bless themselves with Holy Water, when entering the worship space, an act that “recalls our baptism and who we are called to be as Christians,” Father Brogan said.

After Father Brogan’s talk, Father Andrew Dutko, parochial vicar of Corpus Christi Parish in Chatham Township, said, “This [presentation] was great. We know what worked and what didn’t when it happens again.”

Lisa Gervasio, director of religious education at Father Brogan’s former parish of St. Catherine’s, called the talk “eye opening.

“It’s good to know that other parishes were going through the same things, during COVID-19,” said Gervasio, a member of Our Lady Queen of Peace in New Providence in the Newark Archdiocese. “It gives me hope. I’m glad that we are getting back to what I’ve really missed: the socialization — my relationship with God and my fellow parishioners at Mass,” she said.