Advent Blessings from Dean Thompson
Dear Cathedral Family & Friends,
Advent blessings to you! At the Cathedral, we are preparing for our Christmas Eve services on Friday at 4 p.m., 6 p.m. (Spanish), 8 p.m., and 11 p.m. For the later services, special Christmas music begins at 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. respectively.
As we have throughout this long pandemic, Cathedral leadership continues to participate in the bi-weekly conference call with leadership from the Texas Medical Center. We are monitoring COVID conditions in our community, especially the advance of the Omicron variant. As a result, and as we prepare for our Christmas Eve services at the Cathedral, the Wardens and I offer this counsel and encouragement:
- Our services at 4 p.m., 6 p.m. (Spanish), 8 p.m., and 11 p.m. will all be livestreamed on the Cathedral website at: www.christchurchcathedral.org/christmas. If you are unvaccinated, if you are in a pronounced risk category, or if you simply feel safer at home, we encourage you to engage Christmas Eve worship virtually instead of in-person.
- Additionally, if you have any symptoms of illness of any kind, please worship from home via our livestream.
- If you are vaccinated and plan to attend Christmas Eve worship in-person, we strongly recommend and encourage that you wear a mask. We will have larger than usual attendance on Christmas Eve, and masking provides an additional level of health safety. When gathering indoors, masking is demonstrated to be one of the most effective means of preventing the spread of COVID.
- If you wish to worship in-person but avoid large crowds, consider attending the Christmas Day service at 10 a.m. in lieu of Christmas Eve.
We take precautions because we love one another. Our love mirrors the love of God for us, and that divine love is expressed most fully when God is incarnate among us through the Nativity. This Christmas, I pray for you joy, safety, and health. Merry Christmas!
Grace and peace,
The Very Reverend Barkley Thompson, Dean
English