Dear People, Neighbours, and Friends of St. Thomas’s,
Since the Bishop has left Christmas observances to the discretion of the clergy in charge of each parish, after consultation with the staff and wardens, I have decided to proceed with our planned in-person services, including choral music and limited congregational singing, but with the specific provisos outlined below. If you choose to attend one of our services, we expect that your presence with us will entail your full cooperation, whether these provisos are to your liking or not. These provisos are certainly not to my liking in the sense that I wish they were unnecessary, but recent events indicate otherwise.
Provisos for In-Person Attendance
Masking: At all times, everyone in the church must wear an N95, KN95, or an acceptable equivalent mask. If you do not have one of these qualifying masks, the minimum acceptable coverage is two disposable medical face masks properly fitted, and for choristers with properly fitted singing masks, one disposable medical face mask worn over that. Given recent research, cloth masks on their own, unless worn with two disposable masks, provide insufficient protection. If you do not have an acceptable mask, two disposable masks will be issued to you at the door. A reminder that masks should be worn covering both one’s nose and mouth at all times.
Congregational singing is still allowed, but we strongly recommend that you do so softly, if at all. Tuneful humming, such as when we are enjoying a piece of music on the radio, is fine; we want you to enjoy the music and to participate in it, but with this new variant that is several times more contagious than others, we can’t encourage anything more than gentle singing behind your mask(s).
The gang from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special demonstrates the dos and don’ts of congregational vocalizations. In the minute-long clip below, if you imagine the gang wearing masks (and standing appropriately spaced apart), what they do from 0:16 through 0:44 (including their contented silence) is lovely. But we are duty-bound to discourage the sort of behaviour they exhibit when they get more boisterous, starting at 0:45, and especially their full-throated singing beginning at 0:50 through the end of the clip.
I hope to see the return of boisterous and joyful singing well before Christmas 2022, but the only way that we can responsibly allow for congregational musical participation at Christmas 2021 is if you follow the example of Charlie Brown’s friends in their quieter mood.
Services Will Be Livestreamed
Our services will be livestreamed for those who are not comfortable being with us in person, or who for any reason are unable to join us on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. We encourage you to join us via YouTube at the links provided in the service listings on our website home page.
Why Not Cancel Services Entirely?
It may be helpful to know why we decided to proceed with in-person services, albeit with reduced choral music and limited congregational participation, when so many other parishes and dioceses have decided to cancel their services. We recognize that local context matters a great deal, so we are in no position to judge either favourably or unfavourably our brothers and sisters in Christ who have chosen to express their intent to act responsibly in other ways, including by offering services online only, or not at all.
For me, it comes down to this: If we are committed to undertaking the Friday Food Ministry on Christmas Eve, we must be at least as equally committed to offering in-person Mass on Christmas Eve. No one has suggested we cancel the Friday Food Ministry (FFM), because that would be abdicating our responsibility to feed the hungry. It is obvious that we must seek to serve others as Christ served us. Thus, the question was never “Should we cancel FFM?” but rather “What can we do that will ensure we are undertaking FFM in the most responsible way possible under the current circumstances, so that those who volunteer are reasonably protected, and so that our guests will be fed?” After all, we believe that when we feed others, it is possible to have an authentic encounter with Christ.
If we recognize that the physical food the church provides our guests in the Friday Food Ministry is central to our mission, what about the spiritual food that makes our mission and ministry possible in the first place? The worship of God in the beauty of holiness, with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength, is why we exist as a parish, and everything we do flows from that. On this great feast of the Incarnation, therefore, we will celebrate the coming of the One who gave himself to us so that we, in the Friday Food Ministry, in our music and liturgy, in our preaching, and in a myriad of other ways, might be faithful to the call that St. Thomas’s parish has to be a place where all may encounter the Incarnate and Risen Lord, every single day of the year.
As Fr. James Shire so beautifully put it in last Saturday’s edition of the Thurible, “We can all make these dark and unsettling times bright. Acts of love, charity, and service announce the coming of Christ into the world, and they draw people to him just as the shepherds were drawn to the Christ child by the proclamation of the angels. In this confluence of love, service, time, and space, we can find a little of the old Bethlehem out in front of St. Thomas’s on Huron Street.” To which I would only add that we find the source and destination of that self-emptying love for the world whenever we gather, virtually or in person, at God’s altar.
Above the altar at St. Thomas’s, at the top of the reredos can be seen the words “Sic Deus dilexit mundum,” that is, “For God so loved the world,” which of course is the beginning of one of the most famous verses in the Bible, John 3:16, a verse many have called “the Gospel in miniature”: “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” The Friday Food Ministry is one small way that we respond to God’s love for the world. Christmas, on the other hand, is our answer to how much God loves the world.
O come, let us adore him.
Yours in Christ’s service,
N.J.A. Humphrey+
VIII Rector
