Remembering hope on Christmas Eve

MOSES LAKE — There was no choir. There was no incense. There was no 42-generation genealogy of Jesus as outlined in the Gospel According to Matthew. The service was a little less than an hour, short for a Catholic Mass on a major holy day.

And the congregation for the first Christmas Eve Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church on North Dale Road in Moses Lake was limited to every other pew, to a “recommended” size of 200 people.

“Gosh, it’s certainly interesting celebrating Mass under these conditions,” said a masked Rev. Daniel Dufner. “Everything we do is kind of, in a certain sense, done with our arms tied behind our backs.”

It’s all to keep parishioners safe, Dufner said. But that doesn’t stop parish leaders from trying to make worship as meaningful, and even hopeful, as possible given all of the COVID-19 precautions — physical distancing, deep cleaning between worship services and plexiglass barriers during communion.

“Maybe it’s more meaningful for many folks this year because it does really remind us of our cause for joy, our cause for hope,” Dufner said.

“And that’s something that people have not had maybe as much of as they would in more normal kinds of times,” he added.

This was the first of three Christmas Eve Masses held by Our Lady of Fatima following Gov. Jay Inslee’s announcement last Monday, which loosened restrictions on the number of people who could worship together. Dufner said the church would also have a Spanish-language Mass and then a “last-chance” bilingual Mass for anyone who missed the prior two masses.

“I was really kind of sweating bullets whether we’d have enough capacity or not; this is of all of our Christmas Masses normally, the one that’s usually the fullest,” he said.

Among the ways Dufner said he shortened the worship service was to use the shorter confession of faith, the Apostles’ Creed, and keep to his one-page sermon.

“Normally, I’m more extemporaneous in my preaching, but to keep me from getting carried away, I’m sort of ball-and-chaining myself to one-page texts,” he said.

Masen Sandoval, who attended with his sisters and his grandmother Dorothy Alvarado, understood exactly why they were all there.

“Because it’s Jesus’ birthday and we’re going to pray for our grandma because she’s sick and pray for each other,” he said.

“It’s our tradition to come every year; we celebrate Christmas with our family and pray for everybody in the community, and for everyone that’s sick,” Alvarado added.

Hilary Tucker, who played the piano and sang all of the songs, as in-church congregational or choir singing is still not allowed, said it has been difficult “to be the entire choir” during worship services because so much of the Mass is intended to be sung by the congregation.

“It’s a struggle, especially for me, because I associate music with heaven, and Mass is where we believe that heaven is present with earth. That’s where the two come together,” she said. “We know that the angels and the saints sing in heaven, and we the people are not able to join our voices with theirs right now.”

Tucker said, in providing music, she represents “the entire body present,” and tries to select music that expresses the range of emotions worshipers might be feeling at any one time.

“I try to choose music that represents the feelings of either happiness, or sadness, or longing, or desperation that is in the hearts of everyone,” she said.

Charles H. Featherstone can be reached at [email protected].