Small Changes for a Larger Purpose

Over the past several months, our parish liturgy committee has been reviewing some of the ways we do things at Mass. Overall, we found that our liturgies are prayerful and fulfilling, but there were two areas that we thought could be improved. 

The Second Collection 

Currently, the second collection takes place after Holy Communion. Since reception of the Eucharist is the sacrifice around which the entire Mass is centered, we found that adding a collection afterward broke the flow of the Mass and didn't allow enough time for prayer and reflection. We will now take up the second collection right after the first one during the offertory. We felt that this point in the Mass just made more theological and 'logistic' sense. 

The Announcements

St. Ben's is a big and active place. Our Sunday announcements reflect this, but because of the number of things going on, they can sometimes go a bit long. We've also found that people tend to be in a different state of mind at the beginning of Mass than the end. Announcements will now be done at the start of Mass. We will be working with all our ministries to make our announcements more succinct and effective. 

We plan to implement these revisions this August. It is our hope that these two small changes will help us to pray better as a community. As always, we welcome your feedback. 

Jeremy Kiolbassa 

Director of Music Ministry