Just a little more than a year ago, we had all come to believe that our churches would always be open to worship the Almighty.
Who would ever have thought back then that the day was coming when churches of every Faith would be closed—without even an outcry from most of the clerics who preached to us over our lifetimes?
Following government dictates, clerics went into hiding in the pretence they were saving us from a pandemic to never be heard from again.
Perhaps like so many of the Faithful, preachers took open worship of God Almighty in church for granted
Perhaps like so many of the Faithful, preachers took open worship of God Almighty in church for granted, assuming it would always be there.
To me the closing down of churches is similar to a little boy and his dog who waited faithfully each day for the school bus to drop his little sister back home.
One day he just wasn’t there anymore. It wasn’t because he became bored with the daily wait for his sister’s return home on the school bus, but because over time he had transitioned over from little boy to little girl status, dramatically changing his priority.
Speaking personally, I will never forget the shock that came with the abrupt and heart-breaking shut down of my own local church.
Most parishioners, including myself knew by the sign “Closed” on the church door that there would be no more Sunday Masses there. But for a brief time, weekday Masses could still be attended for the few that attended them.
Worried that the next Tuesday Mass would be cancelled, a friend who used to join me for Tuesday service called me, asking if I would call the parish priest asking him whether tomorrow’s Mass would be held in the main church or in the smaller church chapel.
(I am deliberately not naming the church or priest where this happened for fear of bishop reprisal against the priest, who now serves in another church but one in the same diocese.)
Indeed, it is sadly true that devote priests get reprisal from bishops all the way from here to Wisconsin and in between.
In any case, I telephoned on Monday inquiring of the the priest whether he would be saying Mass on Tuesday. When he answered in the affirmative, I asked “Will it be in church or chapel”? He answered depending on how many parishioners would be there.
“You must leave now”
On Tuesday, there was no one in the main church, but candles were alight with Communion wafers waiting to be placed into the dish where they would be blessed.
Relieved to see this, I was making my way up to a pew, when a lady showed up at the back of the chapel, demanding to know: “What are you doing here?”
I told her, I was there for Mass.
She responded: “There is no Mass here this evening.”
When I told her that Fr. So and So had told me over the telephone only last night that there would be a Mass this evening, she said, “The Bishop just sent a message that had arrived only minutes ago stating clearly: “No more weekday Masses”, notice of which was now hammered to the Church front door.
“You must leave now,” she said.
With many misgivings and genuine sorrow in my heart, I decided to go to a grotto I had been occasionally visiting in another village. The grotto, which includes a statue of the Blessed Virgin, where I left flowers, is behind a church that was closed a few years before the pandemic hit, and includes a life-size bronze figure of Christ on the Crucifix, overlooking a cemetery with graves dating back to the early 1800s.
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I still feel deep sorrow in my heart, worried that I will never be able to get back into church in my lifetime
I had been there several times before, but on this day, I managed to climb up onto the plinth of the Crucifix in order to touch the feet of the Christ image.
The moment I did that will live with me forever. The sadness in my heart that took me there suddenly diminished as I touched the Feet of our Savior.
I still go to the Grotto whenever I can, hoping that Premier Doug Ford’s Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) won’t stop me asking that I state my business and declare my Grotto visits as “non-essential”.
I still feel deep sorrow in my heart, worried that I will never be able to get back into church in my lifetime, but remain buoyed with the knowledge that I can still pray—wherever I happen to be.
My constant prayer today is that not a single soul on Earth loses Faith in God Almighty during the Pandemic—or anything else going on in the Valley of Tears.
Looking back on when we could always go to Church, how I wish I hadn’t taken for granted that open churches for worship would always be there.
Most sadly, sometimes when we look back for what we love most, we are finding that they aren’t there anymore.
Judi McLeod——Bio and Archives
-- Judi McLeod, Founder, Owner and Editor of Canada Free Press, is an award-winning journalist with more than 30 years’ experience in the print and online media. A former Toronto Sun columnist, she also worked for the Kingston Whig Standard. Her work has appeared throughout the ‘Net, including on Rush Limbaugh and Fox News.
Just a little more than a year ago, we had all come to believe that our churches would always be open to worship the Almighty.
Who would ever have thought back then that the day was coming when churches of every Faith would be closed—without even an outcry from most of the clerics who preached to us over our lifetimes?
Following government dictates, clerics went into hiding in the pretence they were saving us from a pandemic to never be heard from again.
