COVID-19 outbreak

Due to the Coronavirus COVID-19 outbreak, Archbishop Perez has suspended all public Masses in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. As a result, Holy Week Masses and services will be private. Please check with St. Mary parish's web site for more information. If you belong or attend another parish, please check with that parish for more information.

Please pray for a quick end to this epidemic. Fr. Gismondi, Pastor of St. Mary's Church, asks everyone to pray to Our Lady of Perpetual Help for her intercession

MASS attendance via television or the internet. Parishes in our area and across the nation are finding ways to bring Mass to the people during this outbreak. One way they are offering it is to stream a Mass on the internet or on television. Although you are not physically in the church, you can still attend Mass.

Since we are limited and are not able to receive Holy Communion, the Church encourages frequent, even daily, Holy Communion, but if at any time we cannot go to Mass in or out of this season of the coronavirus, we can still unite ourselves to the Eucharist through making a spiritual Communion.

By making an Act of Spiritual Communion, we express our faith in Christ’s Real Presence in the Eucharist and ask him to unite himself with us. Here is the Act of Spiritual Communion written by St. Alphonsus de Liguori:

My Jesus,

I believe that you are present in the Most Holy Sacrament.

I love you above all things, and I desire to receive you into my soul.

Since I cannot at this moment receive you sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart.

I embrace you as if you were already there and unite myself wholly to you.

Never permit me to be seperated from you.

Amen.