Local man Art Ronaldo is thankful he gets to watch 12 minutes of Mass, despite being stuck sick at home.
“I’m really looking forward to the few parts of the livestreamed Mass that I will be able to both see and hear,” Ronaldo said. “It’s such a consolation in this time of physical pain.”
Ronaldo was diagnosed with bone cancer last year and has been bedridden for several months. Sometimes the parish sends a Eucharistic Minister to give him Communion at home, but most weeks he only can look forward to participating virtually in Mass.
“My priest livestreams the 9 AM Mass,” he said. “And from 9:12 through 9:24 I am enraptured in the liturgy.”
The rest of the Mass Ronaldo said he spends vaguely annoyed as something or other disrupts the broadcast.
“The first five minutes there’s always no sound,” he said. “Then sometimes the video cuts out, but if not it at least freezes and buffers from about the Eucharistic Prayer onwards.”
At press time, the stream was running smoothly for a record 14 consecutive minutes before the priest accidentally turned off his microphone.