Well, Lent has begun! I’m actually writing this on Ash Wednesday morning; so for me it’s just barely begun, but when you are reading this it will be the Saturday after Ash Wednesday or the First Sunday of Lent. From the crowd at the 7:30 a.m. Mass today (again, Ash Wednesday morning), I expect that we will have had large crowds all day: — sadly, too large as all the Services and Masses were signed up FULL and we will have turned away any who showed up without pre-registering!

Now, you know that the Diocese has allowed us to go to 35% capacity and the State of Nevada up to 50% capacity IF we maintain six feet of social distancing.  We must follow the Diocesan rules before the State: but although 35% of our capacity of 1,700 seats would be 595, we cannot accommodate that number of attendees without breaking the social distancing rule of six feet. In fact, when we were allowed to go to 25% (which technically would be 425 attendees), we lowered it to 400.  We must use only every other pew (the ones marked on both ends with “Reserved”signs) in order to keep six feet apart from those in front of or behind those attending. We suggest that persons sit only at the ends of the shorter pews and a few in the middle of the longer pews; but this can throw the statistics off depending on if it’s one person at the end or middle of the pew or a family of five, for example.

The decision for now is to keep it at only 400 persons as long as six feet remains the standard for social distancing.  Our next big challenge will be Easter Sunday. By the way, since we have the largest Catholic parish church building in Clark County, we also have the largest number of allowed attendees at 400!

Remember to take advantage of the Lenten activities this week: daily Lenten reflections, “Les Miserables” Bible Study and Stations of the Cross. Check elsewhere in this bulletin for more details.

Have a good Lent! God bless you!