By: JC Montenegro
Delegate for Mission Animation

This year because of COVID 19. Holy Week was celebrated differently, at St. Dominic Savio Church we put together a whole online program to accompany parishioners through one of the most important weeks of our Catholic Tradition.

Monday and Wednesday Online Bilingual Lectio Divina; lead by Fr. Fabian Cardenas and accompanied by Fr. Mike Gergen and Jorge Galvis, our new volunteer. In this activity, they focused on Thursdays readings. Each of these activities had over 250 participants.

Tuesday Online Multilingual Rosary; prayed by the formation community, every pre-novice or candidate prayed a decade in their language: English, Spanish, Tagalog, Vietnamese, and French. Over 200 people tuned in.

Holy Thursday Food Pantry and the Celebration of the Lord’s Last Supper; The pantry provided over 100 food bags to people in need. While at our Holy Thursday celebration, over 500 people participated in this beautiful online Mass.

Good Friday had plenty of activities; the day started with a bilingual retreat lead by Fr. Luis Flores with over 150 online participants, followed by the Stations of the Cross lead by Fr. Fabian Cardenas with around 200 online participants. At 3 PM we had the Liturgy of the Word for the English-speaking people lead by Fr. Mike Gergen accompanied by 150 participants and at 7 PM the Liturgy of the Word for the Spanish-speaking people. The day ended with a youth online gathering with over 108 youth.

Holy Saturday, with the liturgy of the Easter celebration, gather over 500 people online. For some of our online parishioners, this celebration was the first celebration they participated because it was transmitted online.

What have we learned from this week?

• People need the church more than ever before. It is up to us to reach out to them
• The internet is a powerful tool that gives us the option to be present in their lives
• We cannot be afraid to adapt to the new era