Easter worshipers thrilled to be back, even with limits.
Worshipers ‘thrilled to be back’ in churches even with limits
Nina Toracca and Julia Kiehn, both 17 and in Easter dresses, had just taken Communion in the form of a wafer handed out in a paper napkin before dashing out to the sidewalk in front of St. Vincent de Paul Church in San Francisco.
“This is so weird,” said Kiehn to Toracca after the two parish gradeschool friends hugged in greeting. What was weird was being at church itself.
“This is my first inperson Mass in eight months,” said Toracca. “It feels pretty good.”
A year ago Easter services in the Bay Area were conducted through computer screens, but on Sunday many were live at minimal capacity and by reservation. St. Vincent de Paul in Cow Hollow, with a capacity of 600, got maybe 100 at each of four Masses. Masks were required, a sanitation station was set up in the lobby, and parishioners maintained social distance in the pews. Mass was limited to 45 minutes, and the heavy double doors were wide open to the traffic noise on Green Street.
“On a normal Easter they’d be out the door and down the stairs waiting to get in,” said Father Mike Healy, watching from the back.
For people still hesitant to go
inside before the community is fully vaccinated, St. Mary the Virgin Episcopal Church around the corner on Union Street had an appealing workaround. Its service was conducted outside in the courtyard, with blue Xs marking the spot where families could stand, two to an X. Services were held on the hour at a maximum of 70 attendees. Tickets were required, and an additional service was added to meet demand, for a total of five.
“We have not met in person since the lockdown,” said St. Mary the Virgin usher Linda Logemann, “and everybody is thrilled to be back.”
At the entry gate each attendee was given a hand bell, and at the end of the service, they rang them along with the church bells. Their chiming just before 11 a.m. could be heard all the way up the hill at St. Vincent de Paul.
After Mass up there, people stood around outside as if they did not want to leave. “As Catholics, we are so centered on Communion that it is difficult to be away from it,” said Sara Kiehn, Julia’s mom.
SVDP, as they call it, is so deeply entrenched in its neighborhood that Green Street is blocked off between Steiner and Pierce streets twice a day so kids at the parish school can use it as a playground for recess. That’s a privilege that was granted in handwriting by Mayor James “Sunny Jim” Rolph in the early 20th century and has stood both the test of time and the test of the courtroom.
“What a wonderful feeling to be back in church and rejoice together,” said Alyssa Rauch, who was at SVDP with her mom, her best friend, her husband and their three children, including a newborn in a stroller.
Running up and down the sidewalk was her daughter Marie, 2. It had been a long year because she’d been promised she could wear her mom’s Easter dress from when she was a child in San Diego. Then, last year, Easter got canceled, and it would not do to wear it around the house while watching Mass on a screen.
“She couldn’t wear it last year,” said Rauch. But this year she could. “She loves it.”
Matt Shriber and his two sons, Max, 6 and Lucas, 4, had all been baptized the night before. Now they were back in church with their mother, Jessie, a Catholic of longstanding. That made two church sessions in about 12 hours, and Max, for one, was deserving of a reward.
“Can we get brunch now?” he said as soon as he was outside the church doors.