As mentioned in earlier bulletins, we are searching for a way to provide a Mass time for our Hispanic community on Sundays. The results I have been getting back from many people are that we should adjust the Sunday Masses at St. Joseph the Worker in North Fork and Our Lady of the Sierra Church by half an hour. The strong consensus coming back to me is to move the afternoon Mass from Bass Lake to Sunday mornings, possibly to 9:30am.......thus we would have the Spanish Mass in the afternoon slot where we had the Bass Lake Mass. This would give us five weekend Masses; one Saturday, and four on Sundays. The new schedule would start in November with the change over to the winter hours. The new winter hours would, beginning November, become our regular Mass schedule for the year.
WINTER HOURS:
Saturday Vigil Mass: 4:00pm at Our Lady of the Sierra, Oakhurst
Sunday Masses: 8:00am at St. Joseph the Worker, North Fork
9:30am at St. Dominic Savio, Bass Lake
11:30am at Our Lady of the Sierra, Oakhurst
4:00pm [Spanish Mass] at Our Lady of the Sierra, Oakhurst
I am open to further discussion and would like more input from as many of our parishioners as possible. Again, the reason for the Spanish Mass in the afternoon is that most of our Spanish speaking Catholic community work in the hospitality industry in the mountain communities, and the afternoon Mass would be in between their lunch and dinner hours for those who work in restaurants, and for those who work in the hotels/motels in housekeeping: they would be finished by that time to attend Mass. I know that the greatest inconvenience is to the Bass Lake community who have had the afternoon Mass for years. However, this will be a greater service for our tourists who would be much more able to attend Mass in the morning as opposed to the late afternoon. I am hoping for understanding and for all of us to reach out to the Spanish speaking Catholics who live in our mountain communities. Presently, of all the baptisms we have in our church, the Spanish speaking baptisms far outnumber the English baptisms. Also more and more Spanish speaking weddings are coming forth as young couples seek to marry or have their marriages revalidated.
I am also happy that Consuelo Mercier will undertake the ministry of outreach to the Spanish speaking, and will help in coordinating the Spanish Masses. Her help is deeply appreciated. She has a long history of working with the Spanish speaking in the local school district, and is familiar with many of the Spanish speaking families in the area.
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