The move in the former Newtown and Island Bay parishes, now Wellington South parish, helps the community keep connected when parishioners are unable or anxious about coming to Mass.

Essentially as a service of the Word, it builds on familiarity but is not pretending to be something that it's not, Eucharist at a distance or Eucharist where participants watch a select few gather around the table to eat and drink.

The Zoom Liturgy of the Word is also a live event and not recorded, so to participate people have to be there.

"In some ways, it's more transparent than Mass, everyone sees you and it's more difficult to sneak in unnoticed if you're late", a somewhat embarrassed parishioner told CathNews.

Another described the Zoom Liturgy of the Word as a "well-planned, and a liturgically and spiritually nourishing journey."

"We have been delighted by the creative initiatives that have arisen and the way the risen Lord has used these to bestow his graces." - NZ Catholic bishops.

The idea came from a parish meeting that heard parishioners, even when locked down, wanted to be together spiritually but without the social anxiety of being inside at church.

So having identified the need, organisers designed something familiar, but lay-led.

On average around 60 parishioners participated.

"The opportunity for a group of believers to pray together is marvellous; the long term impact of this is yet to be seen, says Joe Grayland, author, liturgist and Doctor of Theology specialising in Liturgy and Sacramental Theology.

He describes the Zoom Liturgy of the Word as a significant development in Catholic worship.

"There is a democratisation of worship through the work of many people and there is community between those gathering. Both of these are important because they reorient worship as we ordinarily experience it on Sundays", he says.

Embarking on the process brought forward a range of gifts and talents among the parishioners, which organisers say it is akin to the Early Church.

They say the feedback has been very positive and, in particular, people have mentioned the well-prepared reflections on the Sunday readings.

"We enjoyed working together and improving each week in a safe, non-judgemental environment" a participant told CathNews.

"The liturgy was prayerful, inclusive, welcoming and non-threatening", another said.

"God always provides for His people. The sacraments, which are the primary communicators of the life of God within the Church, are not the origin of grace, nor do they have a monopoly on it. God is the origin of all grace and God freely chooses to reward virtue, good intentions and actions." - NZ Catholic bishops.

Grayland endorses tools such as Zoom that can serve a community well by keeping it together in prolonged periods of lockdown, traffic light status, and vulnerability. However he says such tools are still in their infancy and have their limits.

"They work well in meeting formats but a little less so anywhere there are simultaneous multiple participants."

Grayland says online conversation tools like Zoom are particularly good at one-at-a-time interaction, but their current limitations are restrictive when for example they are used for communal singing and praying.

"The group cannot literally pray as one in each other's hearing or presence - because if everyone talks together on Zoom it's just noise.

"The only way 'communal' prayer works is when everyone except the leader is on mute," says Grayland.

"The sacred liturgy does not exhaust the entire activity of the Church. Before men (sic) can come to the liturgy they must be called to faith and to conversion: "How then are they to call upon Him in whom they have not yet believed? But how are they to believe Him whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear if no one preaches? And how are men to preach unless they be sent?" (Rom. 10:14-15)." - Sacronsanctum Concilium No 9.

The liturgy group plans to further enhance parish life now parishioners have had a taste of coming together "as one".

The plans also include providing Catechesis, liturgical formation and technical Zoom-host training.

The group is also keen to expand the group of parishioners who can participate in making the liturgies work next time there's a lockdown, red traffic light or when people feel vulnerable.

The organising group says that one of the 'in real life' things the initiative highlights is the need to update the parish Census and contact information.

The Zoom Liturgy of the Word initiative received the endorsement of Wellington South parish priest Fr Doug Shepherd.

Sources

• Supplied: Catholic Parish of Wellington South
• NZ Catholic bishops - Pastoral Letter
• NZ Catholic bishops - Pastoral Letter
• Dr Joe Grayland - Liturgical Lockdown - A New Zealand Perspective
• Sacrosanctum Concilium

As this pandemic transforms faith communities, the national conversation among leaders has been too timid and tactical — focused mostly on the logistics of returning to our brick-and-mortar buildings: How soon can we get bodies back into the pews?

How many in the sanctuary at one time? How far apart should worshippers sit?

And, most confounding of all, should we require masks?

I believe these are the wrong questions, formulated from an old-world point of view that not only risks the health and safety of our congregants, but also risks diminishing our relevance in both today's world and tomorrow's.

I submit that the right questions assume that physical and virtual worship can happily coexist and sound more like this: How do we transition fully and faithfully to virtual worship?

How do we reintroduce in-person worship as part of a rich virtual experience once the pandemic is over?

Most importantly, what can COVID-19 teach us about bringing people to God no matter where they are or where we are?

The fact is, COVID-19 has merely hastened the arrival of a new world of worship that has been coming our way for decades. Recent Barna research predating the pandemic found that 22% of practicing Christians and 52% of practicing Christian millennials reported "worship shifting" — replacing traditional worship with virtual options like streamed sermons and podcasts — at least half the time.

The good news is that COVID-19, for all its trials, not only forces us to reimagine the way we will address the worship preferences of our congregations going forward but gives us room to transform our ideas into action.

The key to success, I believe, is to accept that this transformation will be permanent and make the most of it.

I, for one, will not even consider bringing the people we serve back into our buildings until we have a vaccine for COVID-19, however long that takes.

We are ready.

Nearly a decade ago, the leadership of our congregation, the largest African American church in Tennessee, began to shift from only counting footprints to counting fingerprints, too.

We treated gatherings in our sanctuary as the ultimate praise experience, and we put tremendous time and effort into orchestrating them.

But we also viewed the wealth and variety of emerging digital tools as a way to meet the faithful wherever they were.

Every time a new social platform — like Instagram or Periscope — emerged, we asked ourselves how we could make it compatible with our Gospel-centered ministry. Then I willingly took the lead in attempting to master the platform and generate excitement about it.

I still do, and here's why: Digital platforms pick up steam because they're fun!

This strategy has worked for us. Our congregation has grown into the tens of thousands, not only inside our buildings but outside — and, in the latter case, significantly on college and university campuses.

Our youth-focused ministries, many of them online, are among our strongest and most popular.

Interestingly, when we have called the young together for in-person prayer, they have come in droves.

We have every reason to believe they will do the same once it is safe.

We have every reason to believe our older congregants will also return again in large numbers, hungry and thirsty for the in-person fellowship we have nurtured every day with calls to prayer; bible studies; streaming concerts and sermons; gatherings for people on child-rearing or retirement; and wellness checks for those with mental health challenges — all virtual.

Some of these services are old, some are new since COVID-19. None are temporary.

They will not go away once we can gather again. We have chosen to view technology as the friend of a full faith experience.

We will continue to take advantage of advancements.

All congregations can do the same — even if, up until the pandemic, they have largely ignored or decried the worship shift.

It's not too late.

The tools are becoming less expensive, less clunky and less complicated every day. And the likelihood is high that there are people within every faith community who know how to use them effectively.

All that is required is for us to shift our perspectives about the inevitability of worship-shifting. Virtual worship does not have to close our doors. In fact, it can open them wider.

• Bishop Joseph Warren Walker III is the pastor of Mt. Zion Baptist Church, with three locations in Nashville and worldwide access at mtzionanywhere.org. First published in RNS. Republished with permission.
• The analysis or comments in this article do not necessarily reflect the view of CathNews.

Nothing particularly new there, countries have been caught unprepared; the transmission speed of this COVID-19 virus around the world has been unstoppable.

The Decree released by the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments from Rome on 25th March 2020, was unusually brief and not thought through.

Two sentences troubled me.

• The priests are able to celebrate the rites during Holy Week without the presence of the people has also translated to mean that some priests have continued to celebrate Mass in their own parish house bubbles.
• The faithful should be, informed of the beginning times of the celebration so that they prayerfully unite themselves in their homes waiting for a live-streamed Mass.

The Vatican document deflates the developing and mature relationship between the ordained and non-ordained, of being together as the People of God within the genius of liturgy.

For sure these are unpreceded times. Priests being deemed non-essential, (while the tooth fairy and Easter bunny weren't) and Sacraments were denied and the people locked out of our Churches.

Simultaneously parliamentarians asking us to save lives when weeks prior they voted that it was okay to kill preborn children and the terminally ill.

My parish hurriedly held a drive through reconciliation on the front step of the church.

To me, this was like getting a McDonalds or KFC, and for me, it betrayed the respect and dignity of the Sacrament.

But to simply inform the non-ordained to tune in for live-streaming of liturgies to gain unity!

I found this very derogatory as a Catholic woman; it questioned my integrity as a non-ordained person.

Could we non-ordained have been credited for our own prayer spirituality holding us over until we could gather in our parish churches around the altar to celebrate Mass?

What's more, how can a priest privately celebrate Mass on his own, without people, when the gift of the priesthood is for us?

Since COVID-19 levels 4, 3 and 2, we have been inundated with live streaming Masses from around the earth, in fact, anytime, day or night anyone can flick through the internet to find a virtual liturgy that takes their fancy.

People can belong anywhere.

Just how does a layperson, sometimes while having tea and toast, watch Mass from a laptop or TV screen, perhaps skipping from one YouTube channel to another, unite us?

With a minimum internet package, I watched a virtual liturgy once and found it phoney.

• I was not present.
• I couldn't participate.
• I was not heard.
• I was invisible.
• I was nameless.

There's little to be experienced or to be had by virtual participation. In fact, I suggest this is a serious and dangerous contradiction in terms.

Virtual is not real and liturgy is an engaging living activity of the entire community.

The community comes together, to gather together, to be together, around the altar to celebrate God's presence amongst us.

Liturgy is live theatre, it is drama requiring participation, listening, eating and drinking.

Live plays rarely make for successful TV viewing.

So in the absence of the live event, in these times when the community could not gather, I prayed daily, read the divine office and dwelt on the daily scripture readings.

This rich Catholic tradition of prayer provides unity.

• Sue Seconi is a parishioner in the Palmerston North Diocese.