My sincere apologies for the mistakes last Palm Sunday
Over these past two weeks, we have been meditating on the healing of a leper from the first Gospel of St. Mark, but I would like to take a brief pause for a few days. I would like to speak about what happened in our parish just two days ago with the blessing of so many homes with the Blessed Sacrament. I believe that I have never before experienced such a spontaneous, genuine, profound and moving manifestation of love for the Eucharist as the one I witnessed in so many families this past Palm Sunday.
However, before speaking about the blessings we all received and thanking so many people, today I would like to apologize to you for the mistakes that were made on Sunday. I especially want to apologize for the delays. There were families who waited for hours before being able to receive the Lord in the Eucharist. I think that the experience taught us a lot and little by little we will do better with everyone's help.
In a special way, I want to apologize to the 134 families that we were unable to visit. I know that many of you were waiting with great anticipation and enthusiasm. I want to tell you that, if you will allow us, this Sunday, which is the most important Sunday of the year, we will come to your homes to bless you as we would have liked to do last Sunday. If on Palm Sunday the occasion to do so was the triumphal entry into Jerusalem, next Sunday will be the Resurrection of the Lord, and there is no celebration more wonderful than that. We will go to the houses we missed last week and we will bring them the presence of the risen Christ, as on that first Easter morning, to transform their sadness into joy.
We visited about 330 homes in more than 13 uninterrupted hours. Actually, after 9:30 at night, it became very difficult to continue. On the one hand, we did not know if the families were still awake and able to receive us. On the other hand, the house numbers could not be seen very well and that slowed down the process even more.
I also want to apologize for our communication failures. There came a time when it was very difficult to manage so many requests, so many questions, so many doubts. As we all know, things are always more complicated the first time.
I made a mistake when I told everyone that we would visit the houses closest to the parish campus first. Obviously, that was not how in worked out in many cases. I’m not sure how the app did the calculations of routes, itineraries, and visits, but there were families who live 5 minutes from the parish who were not visited because, on the list, they were located in the last places. I apologize for that, too.
One of the things we learned from this experience is that visiting all of the families in one day is impossible. We tried and we really wanted to, but 500 homes were too many for just 4 people. These numbers also partly explain the mistakes in estimated arrival times. If we had had 20 priests, and each visited 10 families, the arrival times would have been more exact, but when the situation was the reverse when we were talking about 500 families for 4 of us, it is was very difficult to be precise in the estimated time of arrival. In the future, we will have to divide the visits into several groups over several days, so that the wait will not be so long and we can be sure that no one is left without receiving the Lord.
I end today, by asking for your forgiveness and thanking everyone for their patience with us. We will learn from the mistakes and, as I mentioned before, with the understanding and patience of all of you, we will do better every time.
Thank you so much and God bless you.
