Live Streamed Services

Melisa Leyland Melisa Leyland

News and updates on re-opening and Sunday worship

On Wednesday, August 19, the Diocese of Toronto released the latest version of the guidelines for re-opening, and churches that demonstrate they are in compliance with the reopening guidelines may aim to reopen for public worship on Sunday, September 13, 2020.

Our re-entry working group is working hard to make sure that everything is in place for re-opening, and details will be released in the next few weeks. In the meantime, please take a few minutes to watch the re-entry video released by the Diocese of Toronto on August 26 that shows all the details that will be put in place as we resume in-person worship. It will show you what to expect, and help you decide if in-person worship is right for you at this time.

This week's Mass will be available on YouTube late on Saturday evening, and an email will be sent out with a link in time for you to join us on Sunday morning. In the meantime, the leaflet can be found HERE.

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Melisa Leyland Melisa Leyland

Mass time adjustment

Dear SMM Community:

For the past few weeks, we have been experimenting with Live Streaming for our Sunday Service with varied results. Despite our best effort, we have not been able to ensure a stable and continuous streaming using the YouTube platform, and the frequent dropping of signals has greatly compromised our worship experience. As such, the Parish Leadership Team, with advice from the Director of Music, has decided to return to pre-recorded Mass starting this Sunday.  We believe from comments and responses we have received that viewers found the recorded services more complete.  We will, however, be slightly changing our approach to recording of services.  Rather than having some parts recorded in the church and some recorded remotely, we will record a service in its entirety in an effort to best emulate the SMM experience, recognizing we are not in normal times.

Because participants are already scheduled for this Sunday, we will be recording the service at 10:00 am.  Once the service is over, we will be uploading it to YouTube.  This can take time and there can be variables involved.  We will endeavour to have Sunday's service posted in the early afternoon.  An email will be sent with the link as we normally do once it is posted.   We have certainly noted during this time of "virtual services", that a smaller proportion of viewers are watching Sunday mornings, but rather are viewing the services through Sunday and well into Monday.  Based on that, we are hopeful that the switch for this week will be generally acceptable to our parishioners and regular viewers.

From Sunday's experience, we will determine the timing for the following two Sundays.  Then, as we approach September, we have established a Re-Opening Committee that is providing guidance for a return to public worship.  We are not yet sure what that will look like, but we will, of course, keep you informed on what our approach will be based on the formal guidance of the provincial Chief Medical Officer of Health, Toronto Public Health, and the Diocese of Toronto.

As always, your patience, support, and encouragement are deeply appreciated.

The Parish Leadership Team

Rob Castle
Heather McGregor
Christian Cameron
Anne Todd
Mtr. Johanna 

(Due to vacations, Fr. David and Mark Stenabaugh could not be present)

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