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Televised Mass keeps homebound connected to Church
By Julie Filby
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Televised Christmas Mass English Mass When: 8 a.m., Dec. 25 Channel: Colorado Public Television CPT12; available on Comcast, DirectTV, Dish, Channel 12/12.1 ------------------------ Spanish Mass When: 8 a.m., Dec. 25 Channel: Azteca America Colorado; available via Comcast channel 15, Dish/Direct TV 27 and Digital 7.2 |
Each week the Sandersen family experiences the celebration of the Mass from the living room of their Longmont home. Dad Douglas, mom Deborah, and their 18-year-old son Troy Matthew gather after dinner and watch the TV Mass celebrated by a priest of the Denver Archdiocese.
“We love it,” said Deborah Sandersen. “We’ve watched it for years.”
Since 1966 the archdiocese has offered a weekly televised Mass. In fact, it’s Denver’s longest running local television program. The 30-minute liturgy—broadcast at 6:30 a.m. on Sundays, in English on Colorado Public Television, and in Spanish on Azteca America Colorado—is produced by the Office of Communications, in coordination with the Office of Liturgy and employees of the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception.
“Our son is handicapped,” Sandersen said, explaining that when her son made sounds at church she felt it was distracting for others in the congregation. “That’s why we watch the ‘Mass for Shut-Ins.’”
The viewing audience consists primarily of Catholics who are homebound and physically unable to attend Mass in their neighborhood parish.
“For people tuning in each week, this is often their last connection to the Church,” said Tracy Murphy, associate director of communications and TV Mass coordinator. “They aren’t able to do one thing that many of us take for granted: attend Sunday Mass together.”
The Mass reaches some 20,000 households in Colorado, Nebraska and Wyoming.
“(The homebound) are unknown to so many of us,” said Murphy. “But we must realize that their prayers and suffering are very powerful for us who go about our routine each day.
“Through their suffering—so often invisible to us—we’re all lifted up to heaven,” she continued. “They intercede for the entire Church in this way.”
Viewers find a sense of community through the TV Mass and the celebrating clergy.
“We enjoyed Father Matt Hartley for many years,” said Sandersen. “Seeing Father Larry (Christensen) and Father (James) Fox (who both served in Longmont) is a blast from the past for us … it’s like ‘hometown’ again.”
Primary English celebrants are Father Gene Emrisek, O.F.M. Cap., pastor of Sacred Heart Church in Denver; Father Larry Christensen, C.M., administrator pro tem at Risen Christ in Denver; Father James E. Fox, pastor of Good Shepherd in Denver; and Father Steven Voss, pastor of St. Joseph in Fort Collins. Primary Spanish celebrants are Msgr. Jorge De los Santos, administrator pro tem at Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Denver; Father Alvaro Pancueva, parochial vicar at St. Anthony of Padua in Denver; and Father Gerardo Puga, C.C.R., administrator at Ascension in Denver.
Masses are recorded at the Cathedral Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Denver.
Sandersen appreciates that the Mass is recorded in Denver.
“We like knowing it’s local,” she said.
While Father Voss has celebrated televised Masses since his 2007 ordination, the ministry has long been part of his life.
“As a family we would get up early to go to 7 a.m. Mass at St. Jude’s,” he explained. “We’d all sit in the family room and watch the ‘Mass for Shut-ins’ until our parents were ready to take us to Mass … so it is dear to my heart.”
His grandmother, Jennie Dawson, was a regular viewer until her death in 2003.
“In my grandmother’s later years it was her means of going to Mass,” he said. “It gave her the comfort of hearing the prayers, a feeling as though she’d been in the Mass setting, and a homily to really think on.”
Father Voss, when delivering homilies to an essentially empty cathedral, envisions the audience when he preaches.
“I look directly at the camera and imagine people who I know are watching the Mass, people like my grandmother,” he said. “My homilies are more inclusive about the suffering of being homebound and joys of having children and grandchildren—I try to think of the demographic in an authentic way.”
Murphy said the primary aim of the TV Mass is the continued evangelization of the Gospel.
“Our hope is that our elderly and homebound viewers will remain connected to the local Catholic community,” she said. “And continue to participate in the sacramental life of the Church.”
For more information, visit www.archden.org/tvmass, call 303-715-3123 or email info@ archden.org.
About the Archdiocese of Denver TV Mass
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