No masses and no rehearsals. I am glad I started the Holy Week and Easter music much earlier than usual this year. Given a few days notice, I think we could pull it off.

Practicing organ at home since I need to have all that music ready to play just in case.

Stations may or may not happen. I'm waiting for notification from the rectory.

Still working half days in the government agency from which I retired. Many are working from home but running a library is not a distance task.

Prayer time, although something can come up and shorten that.

Lorica of St Patrick
Prayers in time of Pestilence (as Francis Koerber suggested)

Definitely cooking at home more!

No public Masses, no public Stations, no public Liturgy of the Hours, no Bible study, no public weddings, no public funerals, no public baptisms. The way things are going, we may have to cancel our Multicultural Festival due to lack of time to prepare (happens last weekend of April/first weekend of May)

No change at the moment but we lose our public Mass on Friday Night, although the SSPX is continuing! so may go there!

It’s my birthday. I think the Society chapel in Chi town is having high mass but not sure.

In the meantime I’ve had a lot of time for organ practice, reading R.L. Stevenson, drinking beer, and finally fulfilling my dream of watching Star Trek TNG. But Lordy Lordy - I miss sung liturgy.

Happy birthday, Stimson!

Choir practices cancelled until further notice. Our Holy Week / Triduum, if we have them, may be Low Masses.
I’m sending the singers a series of new pieces to work on, for when we meet again (it IS Lent, after all)

I have the daily Masses on live stream, Deo gratias; am finally getting into Dante and Chesterton.

Meanwhile, Richard, the Governor is, effectively, locking the state's barn doors, now that the fire and the terrified horses are safely inside. On the other side of the country, Governor Cuomo believes that there's no reason to quarantine NYC, so living humans report to me -- i.e., not click bait sites. My niece is in NYC, and we've heard from her mother.

Can't quite follow your metaphors anymore, Chris, sorry about that. The NY Times is offering free access to CV19 reporting, so I'm not depending on a chat forum for info and the Cuomo/de Blasio impasse isn't exactly news to me.

The issue has spawned a semantic debate: The governor has said he supports the framework of a shelter-in-place order in California’s Bay Area, which still allows people to exercise and go out to buy groceries or medicine, but he rejects the term itself. “‘Shelter in place’ is a scary term for people …"

Richard, and others,

locking the state's barn doors, now that the fire and the terrified horses are safely inside.

Governor Newsom has done everything to declare our state a "sanctuary" state, mostly with an eye to Mexico. One wonders what else he hasn't been preventing from entering, given that CA, WA and NYC have the highest infection rates in the country.

Nevertheless, now that the infection is here, instead of working diligently to isolate the sick from the general population, he is mandating a "Shelter in Place" order throughout the entire state, so that panic is setting in when the store shelves were already quite empty enough to look like East Berlin or Venezuela. Shops are trying to hire short-term help to restock the shelves, because they can't, otherwise, keep up with panic buying, which is already being regulated by rationing.

On the other hand, so many people locally are exempt from the Shelter in Place order that.... it's really more a show piece than anything else, unless you work in the restaurant business, the movie theatre business, the sports' business, or .... religion.

Insinuating (without offering a shred of evidence) that the virus arrived from Mexico is not responsible either. What should we expect from you next, a 'counterattack' on Jews?

So yesterday was the first time I ever assisted at Mass via livestream. Pros: indulgenced; no distractions. It made me realize how distracted I've usually been when in a real church!! Guilty pro: I can now assist at any Mass, choosing according to my love of beauty and reverence. Which takes away the whole 'Mass as penance' thing I've been accustomed to. Nice pro: I can assist at a beautiful, prayerful Mass any time now, since there are tons of livestreams. Con: I'm wary of the internet as vehicle for ritual, and was never a fan of livestreaming Masses before this crisis. But I'll leave it in God's hands and see where things go.

At Bishop Lopes's bidding all masses, evensongs, meetings of any kind at Walsingham and throughout the Ordinariate have been cancelled. So -

LIke Salieri, I am doing more than usual listening which includes extensive renaissance polychoral music of Gabrieli, Schutz, Monteverdi, Hassler, and others (this is one of my favourite genres - there is no other music as fitting for solemnities), Beethoven ninth, Mozart symphonies and sonatas, Brahms's and Mozart's requiems, Brahms's D-minor piano concerto, Bach passions, Schutz's Seven Last Words, Tallis Lamentations, Victoria Responsories, Couperin Lecons de tenebres, etc. I'm also practicing my piano for four or five hours a day (Bach through Schubert), and composing the complete propers for the solemnity of Christ the King (in Old Church English) in the style of Lassus's motets for two equal voices, and finally writing letters that I have been putting off from of old, and some calligraphy.

Rehearsals are cancelled as well al public masses, except on 'simple' weekdays - for as long as it lasts.
Churches are open for silent adoration of the Blessed Sacrament, people have to sit/kneel at a distance, maximum attendence 100 (which we rarely have at normal Sunday mass) and no more than 1/4 of the seating capacity. This morning we were about 15.

Funerals are restricted by state regulation to a maximum of 30.
Initially there was a further restriction on who to admit - that one was lifted within less than 24h by the state (but not our bishop, aarrrrgggh) and to be "sober" ... which in my view - and also of the bishop next-door - would mean 'no party' and therefore cover anything traditional catholic, while for our bishop that implies 'max. 20 minutes, no music whatsoever, "of course" (!!!) no mass' ...
In spite of all this, I had the opportunity last Friday to direct our choir at the funeral of the father of one of our singers (in the diocese 'next door', for the record). Eight selected singers separated at a 5-feet distance, placed opposite to the relatives of the deceased - choir loft too small for the spacing - 45 min. service (no mass, as wasn't planned anyways) and all professionally recorded on video by the undertaker for other relatives and friends.
Very serene, and everyone I spoke, including the priest (again at 5 feet distance) agreed that had to be happy not to live five miles north ...

Richard,

Apology accepted.

I don't want this post to turn into a diatribe, so I'm going to limit myself to specific points of clarification.

What I find troubling is that the present governor got promoted (twice!) after he decided to redefine marriage and break the law (when he was mayor of San Francisco), rather than being punished by being sent to jail for the same behavior. He claims there's no danger in anything which suits his agenda, but somehow sees urgent cause (whether there is or not) because it fits his agenda. Sufficient numbers of my fellow residents of California rewarded him, not once, but twice. Now, all of a sudden, there's some danger? This isn't the basis on which to establish authority or urge compliance. It's a necessary component in destroying respect for authority.

On the subject of the Mexican border, the Mexican people in my immediate circle of friends and acquaintances don't like being pigeonholed with the sentence that begins "All Mexicans....."

Like Jared and Catherine and Corinne (and others, probably) I'm not opposed to prudent measures to prevent transmission, and I don't see how closing our churches and preventing the public exercise of our religion is going to help bring a speedy end to the wretched nuisance.

Nisi Dominus aedificaverit domum.....

I just spent two and a half hours meditating on the penitential psalms with the wondrous help of Lassus's Psalmi Dividis Poenitentialis as sung by Phillip Hereweghe's group Collegium Vocale Gent. You'll not find a more heart (and mind)-rending act of penitence! Recommended highly!

Carol,

You illustrate perfectly what the real crisis is, here. Sure, there are sick people, but compared to the spread of panic, COVID 19 is like truth compared to lies. May the panic soon be behind us, and may we come out of it stronger in our faith.

I recommend reading (again) the message from Cdl. Burke which @francis helpfully posted in another thread particularly the first three paragraphs. This is serious, not an excuse for skipping work and visiting tourist traps, which many, too many, in England did at the weekend.

I haven't done so much housework in years. On the fourth load of laundry and slowly rearranging the house to better suit us being indoors so much. Making fun childhood foods like grilled cheese. And repotting lots of plants.

I took groceries out to my 93 year old mother and my dear bachelor brother who cares for her. I stood on the opposite side of the room and yelled loudly so my mother could hear me. She complained that she couldn't see me so I got down on my knees and stuck my face under a bright lamp and she was very happy, claiming she could see my smile. There are 100 cases in my county and one death so far.

Can people please get back to the original question: what are readers doing differently in the current state of affairs?

I'm deleting talk about politicians; it's not about the topic of the thread.

I must pass this along to the readership, even at the risk of being off topic.

A missionary priest of my personal acquaintance, temporarily taken out of Africa for an operation, is striving to get back to his mission (in Africa) just as the airports begin to close. He is stuck (so far... read on) in a different African country, unable to make progress until he prays for the intercession of the Holy Souls in Purgatory. He offers them 30 Masses for their help getting to the U.S., until he could go back to his mission. If I understand the details, he was able to find the last seat on the last flight states-side, with the material, visible help of a complete stranger. He credits the intercession of the Holy Souls. His African mission is being tended by a different missionary priest, and he is here in the U.S., "until the borders open", as he puts it.

Perhaps one thing we ought to be doing, is praying for the Holy Souls?

Pray the rosary EVERY DAY if possible, offer the souls on the first Pater Noster along with all your intentions... and at the conclusion pray of your rosary, pray:

V/ May the Divine Assistance be Always WIth Us
R/ And May the Souls of the Faithful Departed Through the Mercy of God Rest in Peace. Amen.

In some states, being unemployed may qualify you for free health insurance, even if you don't get unemployment compensation; so it may be worthwhile to look into that.

Lo and behold not only are they not paying us during the pandemic furlough, they are not paying us for the work we did in March before the Bishop closed shop.
Does Catholic Charities still offer representation pro bono?