St. Kilian Parish

To set up your account click HERE.

Today in joyful hope, we planted the new St. Kilian's Christmas Tree on the west side of the Church!   A sincere thank you to Mr. Bill Trudden of the McCourt & Trudden Funeral Home for donating the Christmas tree to our Parish.

We are so looking forward to better days ahead and hopefully being fully back in our Church soon, and in December lighting this tree for Christmas and for many Christmases to come.

SAVE THE DATE FOR OUR PARISH CHRISTMAS TREE LIGHTING ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 12TH AFTER THE 5PM MASS!

Confessions for First Friday, June 5th, are at 11 to 12 noon and also 3pm to 4pm.

On Saturday, June 6th, Confessions will be offered at the regular time of 4pm to 5pm.

All Confessions are heard in the Reconciliation Room, located to the right of the altar by the organ.

Make sure you tell your friends and neighbors who don't have e-mail about First Friday Confessions.

Thank You and God Bless You!

29 May 2020

My dear fellow Parishioners,

I hope and pray that you and your loved ones are staying safe and well! We have come closer to the end of quarantining after a very long wait to get back to some kind of normalcy. However, we are not out of the woods yet...so don’t let your guard down now! Keep doing everything you can do to avoid becoming infected with this virus!

During my 37 years in the United States Air Force, when a Presidential Order came down to us we stopped everything and executed that order with the most utmost haste.  For me, that included 48 hours’ notice to deploy and leave my Base (and my Parish) in Japan 45 minutes after my Christmas morning Mass to go to Iraq during the height of the war. My Christmas dinner that night consisted of 2 sandwiches and a Coke, wearing a flack vest in a troop transport plane somewhere over Kyrgyzstan. I could give you many other examples of us fulfilling the President’s orders immediately and without question over my career, but that’s probably better saved for another time and over a beer!

Here, in my now 11 months as a new veteran/civilian and your Pastor, I am finding that is not how life works for me anymore. A week ago, our President declared all Churches and other Houses of Worship to be essential, (which I appreciate) and said they should all be allowed to reopen immediately. That is certainly great news, but his order for me now has several more layers added to it before it can be executed...the most important being the directives of the New York State Governor and the Bishop of Rockville Centre. I’d also add that safety, common sense as well as our own physical limitations of our buildings play important roles in this decision, too.

First, I want to state, that St. Kilian’s Church has never closed during the pandemic and I am surprised at how many people still don’t know that. The Bishop gave each Pastor the choice to close or leave open their Parish Church. I chose to have our beautiful Church remain open for prayer 7 days a week! The Church continues to be open for private prayer before the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament on Monday to Fridays 8:30am to 5:00pm, Saturdays, 9:00am to 5:00pm and Sundays 8:00am to 1:00pm. I encourage you to make a visit to our beautiful Church, say a prayer for your loved ones and for me please, light a candle, put an offering in the poor box if you are able or just sit, relax and meditate in the Lord’s holy presence. I would ask that when visiting the Church that you wear a mask and sit “socially distanced” apart. Also, please come as individuals or couples and do not come as prayer groups yet. 

As for our Church opening for weekday and Sunday Masses, the directive I am obliged to follow as of today (and it can change tomorrow or weeks from now) is that we can celebrate Mass in the Church for no more than 10 people and Holy Communion cannot be distributed.

Now I hope you see the position that puts me in. Who decides who the 10 people are who are allowed to attend Mass? Who tells numbers 11, 12 and beyond that they are not allowed in? How do we adjust to attending Mass but not being able to receive Holy Communion? That is so foreign to us Catholics! Do we have to take all the books out? Do we have to clean after each Mass, and where do I get the volunteers to do that? These are just a few of the many questions I am faced with.

Before all this began, on a typical weekend here at St. Kilian’s, we happily get, in round numbers, about 1,500 people attending the various Sunday Masses. To accommodate the same number of parishioners now under the “only 10 people allowed rule”, the 3 priests assigned to St. Kilian’s, Fr. Jose, Fr. George and myself, would have to each say a total of 150 Sunday Masses or about 16 Masses EACH every weekend - and still not give out Holy Communion! That is certainly not feasible or practical...and I am not yet willing to have our two retired resident priests, who are both over 80 years old, say Mass in public for their own safety. This past week, Msgr. Rom Sosing, the Pastor of Holy Name of Mary Church in Valley Stream died of the Covid virus, may God rest him! The priest, being a public person and interacting with so many people, is at much greater risk of getting sick. So for now, because of the “10 people only rule” we will not be resuming Masses in our Church until the directives on having greater numbers change, and we get further guidance on safety measures.

I know some parishes have begun so-called “Drive-in Masses”. Frankly, I don’t see the point of it because:  1) we would have to purchase a $700 FM transmitter, 2) people would not be allowed to get out of their vehicles, and 3) Holy Communion still couldn’t be given out. Also, with the growing heat and the need to keep the car running for AC and the car radio on, just think of the waste of gas and pollution that would be generated in our parking lot! I don’t want to breathe in all those exhaust fumes for an hour! I recently spoke to a Pastor of a parish that is the same size of ours who tried a “Drive-in Mass” and he told me only 35 cars came, many with just one person in it. So again, I really don’t see the point of this when we continue to offer the Mass on-line. Watching and praying the Mass in your home is safer, more economical, more eco-friendly and much more comfortable than watching it from your car windshield.

Other Sacraments such as Funeral Masses, Baptisms and Weddings all fall under the same rule of not more than 10 people and not giving out Holy Communion. Yesterday, I had the first Funeral Mass back in the Church since March 14^th.  Only 10 family members came, sitting apart and wearing masks the entire time. They didn’t recite the readings and did not receive Communion. The family was offered a Funeral Mass with these restrictions or a burial service with as many people as they wanted, and they chose the Funeral Mass in this restricted capacity. I was glad to do the service for them and going forth now all families will have this option. Families will also have the option of having a Burial Service now and a Memorial Mass later when we open up fully.

Speaking of Burial Services, do you know that in the month of April, we priests here did 56 Burial Services at St. Charles, Pinelawn Memorial Cemetery and by the Statue of the Blessed Mother at the Church? (Twenty-eight were our parishioners and the rest were from Catholic parishes beyond a 12 mile radius of St. Kilian’s that we did to help those parishes.) We were in the cemetery every day, sometimes 4 times a day. The rectory may look closed, but your priests have never stopped this ministry to the bereaved, daily Mass or Anointings of the Sick the whole time of the shutdown.

Since mid-March we now have 58 children from the English-speaking community alone needing Baptism. Now that we have received the “only 10 people allowed to attend rule”, we have been reaching out to all the families offering online Baptism preparation classes to those who have not already completed it. We also are offering each family a private Baptism, scheduled every half hour in 5 hour blocks, beginning this weekend to get these children baptized.

Our Church teaches that Baptism is necessary for Salvation so this is my number one priority as their Pastor! I told them they can ZOOM the Baptism to their families, FaceTime it, video it, whatever...just bring the children to be baptized!! One or two families told me they would wait because having only 10 people allowed to attend just wasn’t enough for them! I was good and didn’t tell them that when I was baptized, back in the last century, only my Godparents brought me to the Church for my Baptism – that was the custom then. My parents, God rest them, didn’t even attend and I turned out alright! I wasn’t strapped in a car seat either, but I digress. 

Regarding Weddings, we have had 14 weddings here that have been postponed and rescheduled – some several times. It’s heartbreaking for the couples, I know. We can have weddings in the Church now with the Bride, the Groom, the Best Man, the Maid of Honor and six guests (the parents and 2 others?) for a total of 10 people. Yes it’s crazy times and good luck getting a hall for the reception! This virus doesn’t only affect the Church! Pray for these couples! Think of all the planning and preparation they did for their wedding day and having to start over again – as I said it’s heartbreaking!

We are now allowed to start individual Confessions again, however, we need to provide a “safe distance space” for it. That consists of the Priest and penitent being 6 feet away from each other, both with masks on and a kind of shield or partition between them that also provides the utmost privacy. Obviously, our regular confessional won’t work for this, so I am working on a plan to possibly convert our sacristy into a room that would meet all these requirements. I hope to have this done by the end of next week and I will notify you by email when and where we will begin confessions again.

As always, a huge “Thank you” to all those who are able to still make monetary donations to our parish and food donations to our Parish Outreach. As I said from the start, my first goal is not to lay off any of our amazing Parish Staff Members who all still working remotely to continue the mission of St. Kilian’s. I have cut my own Pastor’s pay to make sure we don’t have to lay anyone off. 

My second goal is to pay some of our bills and keep the lights on! If you would like to donate, you can do so through the ‘We Share’ link on our Parish website, through the mail or by dropping your donation in the Rectory door mail slot. Again, my sincere gratitude to those who can support the Parish at this time. Please remember if you can’t support the Parish now, please don’t give it a second thought! I know many people are suffering with unemployment and reduced hours and health issues now. If you do need help, please call me or our Parish Outreach and we will do everything possible to assist you and your family until the world is right again. We are a parish that cares for one another in Christian love and support and we want to assist those in need.

While I am on the subject of giving, allow me to tell you a true story! Pretty recently a gentleman called me to say he was surprised that I never personally wrote to him or thanked him for his apparently large Sunday donation to the Parish. I responded to him that I didn’t know how much he gave to the parish and he was shocked! I explained to him I didn’t know how much he gave because in my now 29 plus years of being a priest, I have never once looked up how much a person donates – and I never will. My reason for this is because I believe that a person’s decision on what they financially sacrifice to donate to the parish is between them and God, not me.

Also, and more importantly, I never want to know what a person gives because I promised myself that I don’t ever want to be tempted to treat or relate to people based on what they give. If you give three hundred dollars a week or three dollars a week, I’m going to treat you the same. Believe it or not, I sadly and unfortunately know of a few priests that won’t return a parishioner’s phone call until they first look up what they give. I am never going to be that guy! So for whatever you prayerfully decided to give to support the work of the Lord here at St. Kilian’s...
Thank you!!

I know this was long, so thanks for reading this far! I will keep you informed as things develop. I ask that you please say a prayer for me. I need it because I know how to be a Pastor in Iraq during the war, living in a tent and being mortared every night. I don’t know how to be a Pastor during a worldwide pandemic and I’m just feeling my way and doing the best I can every day...so a prayer or two would be greatly appreciated!

Remember, even though there is still “social distancing” between us, there can never be spiritual distancing between us!

Let us continue to pray for one another!

Rev. Msgr Mark P. Rowan
Pastor, St. Kilian Parish
Chaplain Colonel, USAF, Retired