By Father Casey
On Monday of Holy Week, Melody and I received our second dose of the Moderna vaccine. It may not have been the best timing, since I wasn’t feeling my best for the first days of the most important week of the year for a priest, but we decided not to wait. We wanted to receive this boost to our immune system as soon as we could, and do our part in the global effort to drive the coronavirus back into obscurity. I am astounded by the scientific accomplishments that have led to the several vaccines now available around the world. It is not an overstatement to compare the past year to the moonshot, except instead of just one craft with three astronauts, we are sending half a dozen with seven billion.
Nearly everyone at Transfiguration with whom I speak has received a vaccine. It is a remarkable sign of our widespread embrace of science, and our collective desire to get back our lives. As much as we’ve adapted this past year, experts tell us we can’t just wait out the virus, or assume the worst is past and hope for the best. Just as we adopted masking and distancing as signs of love for our neighbors, so too is vaccination a sign of love. Getting vaccinated shows that we care not only about our own health, but also about the health of everyone around us. When so much that is wrong in the world feels beyond our control, getting vaccinated is a small sacrifice we can make for the greater good.
Given the rates of vaccination, and the slowly growing light at the end of this long pandemic tunnel, we’re gradually reintroducing parts of our church’s in-person life. For example, in May we’re expanding registration for the 11:15 a.m. indoor service to 75, and beginning in mid-May, we’ll offer refreshments outside on Sundays between services. In June, the Clothes Horse will reopen and we’ll begin allowing some ministries to meet in-person (masked) at the church. And in June, we will bring all three weekend services back inside, including The Table on Saturdays at 5:30. Registration will be required, as we need to limit attendance for a while longer, but it will be exciting to have our normal weekend schedule back! Don’t worry if you’re not yet ready to attend in-person, as we’ll continue to livestream at least one service every weekend and deliver communion on a regular basis.
Resuming our regular worship schedule takes a lot of help, and we currently don’t have enough Altar Guild members to support us. We need eight new volunteers to join the team to spread the responsibilities out and ensure we are ready for every service. There are many important ministries at Transfiguration, but none is more important than the Altar Guild, and without them we simply couldn’t worship “in the beauty of holiness” five or more times every week. If you’re willing to join this team, please get in touch with Peter Soper or Olga Ruff.
We’re still quite a long way from the end of the pandemic, so I hope we can all remain patient and disciplined. So please keep praying for our leaders, healthcare workers, scientists, and all in positions of public trust. Please keep masking and being careful in the presence of others as an act of love. And please! – get your shot!