On March 17, 2020, the California Governor Newsom issued a shelter-in-place policy in response the spreading of the COVID-19 virus. It was originally scheduled to last until April 7. Start March 17, we canceled all our events and started streaming private Masses on YouTube and Facebook. Fr. Steven Bell and Paulist novice, Noah Ismael were invaluable in getting us started with streaming using an iPhone and the Switcher app. We started building up a media team to help us with the streaming and expanded our equipment to use 3 iPhone attached to gimbals. We also took advantage of Switcher and added lower third annotations to assist folks watching the Mass online. Fr. Steven developed several extensive Communion Meditations during Communion time. We were later allowed to have limited people attend Mass, so we marked off the church to ensure social distancing. We provided sanitation wipes so folks could wipe down their pew when done. Mask wearing was required for everyone inside the church.

April came and left and we continued the shelter in place. Soon the number of cases increased that the state issued a “Stay at home” order. We were shutdown inside and so we moved the Mass to the patio. Now we added a portable altar and speakers while having chairs spaced 6 feet apart from each other. Hand sanitizer was placed throughout and folks were encourage to sanitize their hands before Mass, just before Communion, and after Mass. The goal was to prevent our celebration of the Mass from causing anyone to spread the virus to another person. We added lights as winter came and our 5pm Mass was in darkness. Christmas came and we added Christmas lights throughout to make the patio look very festive and elegant.

On February 5th, the US Supreme Court overruled California’s policy and allowed churches to celebrate inside. Given this freedom, continued to celebrate outdoors for the safety of our parishioners and volunteers and staff. Given a more contagious version of the virus has evolved, we want to do what we can to ensure everyone’s safety while also providing the spiritual nourishment we all need. With indoor permission, now when it rains, we will have public Mass indoors while maintaining mask wearing and social distancing.

We started with the 10am Mass and later added a 5pm Mass during the summer of 2020. Come Fall when students back, we added a 7pm Mass but had only 3 people register, so we canceled it. In the Spring of 2021 as our 10am Mass reached capacity, we added a 8am Mass.

After a few weeks of shutting down last year, many of our groups started meeting again using ZOOM and Google Meet. We added a new ministry called CONNECT! where parishioners each week were paired and asked to get together either electronically or physically with social distancing. It was successful in getting folks to meet each other who they saw in church but did not know their names. FOCUS Bible Studies were successful with ZOOM. Many of our usual campus ministry programs were canceled because the inability to get together physically such as Student Dinners, Halloween Party, Pajama Party, Donuts & Doubt, and Fellowship Night. We did have Welcome Week in both the Fall and Spring via ZOOM.

In terms of finances, our income and our expenses both dropped 10% in 2020. Throughout 2020, we kept our employees on. Full Time employees were paid 90% and part time employees who could not work were paid 80%. Those who could work were paid their regular wage. Come 2021, given the financial constraints and limited ministries, our music director/liturgist went part time. Our DRE retired.