‘Yearning for touch’
Coronavirus rules have some Lehigh Valley pastors getting creative
This Christmas, the merry gentlemen should rest at home, all ye faithful should not come and the herald angels should sing alone.
That’s what Gov. Tom Wolf recommends, given that the coronavirus pandemic has exploded so dramatically in recent months. In reimposing some restrictions in response to the surge — barring indoor dining, for example — Wolf asked churches to avoid in-person holiday services and stream them online.
That’s not a mandate. Houses of worship in Pennsylvania have been exempt from restrictions all along. And even if they weren’t, recent Supreme Court rulings in cases from New York, New Jersey, California and
Colorado have sided with institutions that objected to restrictions as unconstitutional government meddling in religious affairs.
Even so, in the Lehigh Valley, many churches, including some of the biggest and best-known, have never returned to in-person service, using Zoom, Facebook Live and similar tools to reach congregations at home.
Those that did allow people back imposed strict rules — masking, social distancing, hand sanitizing stations, no singing.
“Wehave very strict sanitation protocols that have been working very well,” said Paul Wirth, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Allentown. “Parishes are being very safe and I think the faithful are being very safe as well and we appreciate their cooperation.”
Because Christmas is one of two holidays — the other is Easter — that draw larger-than-normal crowds, diocesan churches are taking extra steps to keep worshippers safe. That includes adding services to stretch attendance out over the course of the holiday instead of packing everyone into the usual worship schedule.
“The bishop has made a special accommodation this year and allowed Masses to begin as early as 2 p.m. on Christmas Eve [so more can be offered],” Wirth said.
Normally, Masses held that early would not fulfill the Catholic obligation for the next day’s holy day. Bishop Alfred Schlert made the change because he does not want to suspend services, as he and church leaders of other denominations did when the coronavirus arrived. For the faithful, missing in-person Easter services was one of the most distressing aspects of the spring lockdown. And, Wirth said, the diocese believes its coronavirus protocols keep Masses safe.
Pope Francis has made another accommodation for the holiday season, granting priests permission to say as many as four Masses on Christmas Day, the Solemnity of Mary (Jan. 1) and Epiphany (Jan. 6). Typically priests can only say two Masses a day, or three under extraordinary circumstances such as a severe priest shortage.
“We’re going to be celebrating eight Masses, six on Christmas Eve and two on Christmas Day,” said the Rev. Daniel Yenushosky, pastor of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in the Egypt section of Whitehall Township. “Because our church is small, we can only accommodate 75 people safely.”
But that’s not all. This year, reservations are required at Holy Trinity and a number of other churches. Mass-goers can sign up online or call the church office. That will control crowds, and at the same time create a list for contact tracing if an infection arises, Yenushosky said.
Catholics who are worried about getting sick needn’t attend. Schlert and other bishops lifted the obligation in March. Holy
Trinity and many other churches stream services live or record them to put on YouTube, Facebook or other online platforms.
Central Moravian Church in Bethlehem has some of the Valley’s richest holiday traditions, including the Christmas Eve candlelight service and a Children’s Christmas Eve Lovefeast — where Sunday school
pupils enact the Nativity story — but these are on hold. Holiday services will be streamed online. And the in-person Christmas putz, where the story is told through carved figures, has been transformed into a virtual version available on the church’s YouTube channel.
Instead of going virtual, Bethany Wesleyan Church in Cherryville is going to the drive-in. When the pandemic started, the church shifted services to Becky’s Drive-in, where people could worship without getting out of their cars. At Christmas, the congregation will return, with candlelight services at 6 p.m. Sunday, Wednesday and Christmas Eve.
“People can enjoy a shared sense of community, partake in communion using prepackaged elements, light the electric candles they will have received as we sing “Silent Night,” and experience the service on the big screen,” the church said in a news release.
First Presbyterian Church in Allentown held once-a-month outdoor services, but ended them before Thanksgiving when cold weather moved in and the fall surge of infections began.
First Presbyterian’s pastor, the Rev. Jan Nolting Carter, said Christmas will be celebrated mostly online, with morning services on Christmas Eve followed by a Zoom lunch. At 5:30 p.m., the church will host a drive-in gathering, with bells pealing as a prelude to a reading of the Christmas story and the singing of “Silent Night.”
To Carter, this disrupted year has challenged the faithful in a particularly difficult way, by erecting invisible walls between them.
“I think we are all yearning for touch,” she said. “But we have to be intentional about what touch is. How do we have meaningful and substantive interactions that can speak to the deepest yearnings of our hearts with real connection? People of faith are searching for the answer to the question, ‘Where is God in all of this?’ We believe that God is present in it all, even the struggle. That is what we are celebrating with the birth of Christ — God with us, God Emmanuel.”
With the worst of the pandemic at hand even as vaccines roll out, these challenges will continue for many more months. Carter thinks the pandemic may fundamentally transform how people relate to one another.
“I wonder if we will walk out of this experience putting a higher priority on deeper interactions,” she said. “Pre-COVID, we would just say a casual hello or shake somebody’s hand and breeze by. I think we are learning that while that’s nice, we really yearn for more depth.”