The loneliness of preaching in empty churches

The  separation of clergymen from their congregations forced by the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic is causing loneliness as local Catholic priests and ministers of other faiths devise new ways to reach out to their communities during this time of church closures.

 

CHURCH OF IRELAND - REV ROD

Church of Ireland Rector in Nenagh, Reverend Rod Smyth, said the feedback he is getting from the community is that the huge impact on human life and the severe strictures imposed to try to stop the spread of the deadly virus were causing fear.

"There is a fear around and the feeling is just a bit surreal," Reverend Smyth told The Guardian

"As somebody said to me yesterday, it was just as if time was standing still at the moment. But I think people are coping by and large.

"We have a number of vulnerable elderly people in the Church of Ireland, but they all seem to have support channels and mechanisms in place, so that is good."

Reverend Smyth said he and his colleagues in the dioceses had to find other ways of reaching out to their congregations now that Sunday services had ceased due to the spread of Covid-19.

Like other rectors across the dioceses, he is now live-streaming all local Services on Facebook and then uploading them to You Tube so that people have access to them at any time.

To his surprise, this new way of reaching out to people on social media is working rather well. "We are getting great feedback to our Services. The reaction is quite amazing actually - and not just from people from the locality. We are getting views of our Services from England and further afield."

Reverend Smyth said this new way of spreading the faith is prompting churchmen and women like him to re-examine how delivering the message of God's word can be done most effectively.

He says: "It's one of the things we have been discussing at diocesan level. Our communications officer has been saying to us, 'where do you fish for people?.'"

The answer to that question, according to the communications officer, is that, "you fish where they are" - and that, it seems, is on social media.

Reverend Smyth said that with so many other commitments for churchmen like himself, it is difficult to find the time to jump through the all the hoops involved in ministering to his flock online.

"But this is what we are being encouraged to do and I think that at the end of this crisis it's something that we will be looking at: how we re-church, and I think live-streaming is going to become quite normal."

 

CATHOLIC CHURCH - FR REXON

Nenagh Catholic curate, Fr Rexon Chullikal, who has been ministering in the parish for the past two years, said the closure of the two Catholic churches in the town and the cut-off from people has made him and his fellow priests feel a bit isolated.

"We are feeling a little lonely because we see fewer people now with many having become very conscious about the need to practice social distancing," he said.

"We feel isolated because we work with people all the time and when there is no people we feel a bit disconnected."

Like the other Catholic priests in Nenagh Parish, Fr Chullikal is doing his bit to ensure that two daily Masses at Saint Mary's of the Rosary, at 8am and 10am, and a third at Saint John's Church in Tyone, at 12 noon, are broadcast to people in their homes by webcam and on the parish radio.

One of the daily duties of priests in normal times is to visit the local hospital to give Communion to patients too sick to attend church. But this too has now stopped in the effort to curb the virus.

Fr Chullikal, a native of India, said one of the main missions of priests like him was to offer hope to their congregations in these testing times. He finds this role fulfilling and says it has resulted in positive feedback to his homilies.

"This morning after celebrating Mass in the empty church in Saint Mary of the Rosary I got a text from a lady who had just been listening to my homily. It said, 'Fr Rexon, thank you very much for giving us hope’."

"We as priests in Nenagh have also been getting postcards of thanks and encouragement in our letterbox in the presbytery."

Fr Chullikal added: "It is a strange feeling to look down when celebrating Mass and see an empty church, but at the same time I can feel the presence of the people when I celebrate Mass.

"I tell all the people listening that we are united in prayer wherever we are, even though I feel the empty church is unusual."

But what does he say to Christians who may be feeling so much in despair right now that some may think God has abandoned them?

"Sometimes we may feel that God is absent, but at the same time I say to people: look at all the doctors and the nurses and so many people helping out, so many volunteers here in Nenagh itself working so hard during this crisis. This is God working through people."

Fr Chullikal's message to people is to just obey the restrictions imposed by the Government aimed at stopping the spread of the virus. "Obeying things like social distancing; that is what God wants," he says.

 

METHODIST CHURCH - REV STEVEN

Meanwhile, Steven Foster, the Methodist Minister covering Cloughjordan, Roscrea, Borrisokane and Shinrone, said that while not uploading his full Sunday Services on social media, he was putting up his homily each week.

He said: "I'm not putting music and singing up with my homily because I know my congregation on Sunday morning will be tuning in to the Services on television and radio where there is great hymn singing. I let them enjoy that good quality stuff that is there."

And how does he feel his congregation in the Methodist community is dealing with the current crisis? "For the most part I think there is a quiet acceptance of the situation and people are just patiently dealing with things."

However, he added: "There is a loneliness there as well, and so I think it is about making phone calls and encouraging people, because we are living in a reality we just cannot change."

Of the challenges posed by vacant pews Reverend Foster said: "It is strange, but the challenge is not the empty seats at the Sunday morning Service; it is also missing out on the sharing together in other ways that might include a cup of tea after Service or a pot luck lunch that we would have occasionally or other things that are sociable. The challenge is not being able to meet and get together. I think people miss the fellowship of the Church and visiting eachother."