Sunday evening mass at Cathedral to change

Fr. Thomas Willis, pastor of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Augustine, has announced to Historic City News that effective Sunday, July 5, 2009, the Sunday evening Mass at the Cathedral will be changed.

The Mass, presently celebrated at 6:00 p.m., will be held at 5:00 p.m.

The remaining Masses for Sunday will remain as presently scheduled. They are at 7:00, 9:00 and 11:00 a.m. and a Vigil Mass on Saturday afternoon at 5:00 p.m.

“We’ve discussed the change with our Cathedral Parish Council as well as Bishop Galeone and the leadership of the Diocese of St. Augustine,” the Cathedral’s pastor, Fr. Thomas Willis, said recently. “Then over a period of three weeks we asked for comments from the Cathedral parishioners. It was overwhelmingly positive to move ahead with the change.”

Fr. Willis explained the one of the reasons for the move was to lessen confusion on the time for the evening Mass. “We’ve had visitors come up at 6:00 p.m. on Saturday evening, just at that Mass is getting out, wondering how they missed Mass,” Fr. Willis said. “In the same way, we would have people come at 5:00 for the 6:00 Sunday night Mass. We think it’s the right thing to do to try and reduce any confusion that there might be for our visitors.”

The Cathedral Parish, which is the first Catholic parish established in the United States, was established at the time of the founding of St. Augustine in 1565. The parish is presently served by two priests, Fr. Willis and the parochial vicar, Father Andy Blaszkowski.

Photo credit: Historic City News photographer Kerry McGuire