Welcome to the month of January. No doubt, the first month of the year is the month of new beginnings, new opportunities and a chance of starting afresh. Thus, while the past year has been rather memorable for the wrong reasons, we hope and pray that as we step into the year 2021 with the joys of the season of Christmas at heart, it will become for us a year of restoration. In the first part of January we continue to rejoice and celebrate Christ’s coming at Bethlehem and in our hearts. We have the wonderful feasts of Mary, the Mother of God, where we honour Mary’s highest title, and then we follow the Magi to the crib as they bring their gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh on Epiphany. Finally, we reach the culmination of this season with the Feast of the Baptism of Our Lord. Reluctantly, we take down our Christmas decorations and enter into the liturgical period known as the Ordinary Time of the Year during which we devote ourselves to the mystery of Christ in its entirety. The liturgical colour changes from white to green – a symbol of the hope of reaping the eternal harvest of heaven, especially the hope of a glorious resurrection.
Still on COVID-19
We call attention again to the need to focus on encouraging our people to pay attention to the safety precautions that we all know very well by now i.e., wearing of face masks, regular washing of hands, the use of sanitizers, maintaining physical distance, resisting the urge to touch our eyes and faces and observing the basic rules of hygiene. We also expect all Parishes to reawaken and renew the safety measures that we had in place to keep our churches safe and secure for people to worship. Celebration of Masses would be at 50% of the Church’s capacity as indicated by government. Just as it was before, Parishes should consider making use of other available spaces within the Church premises such as Parish halls so as to have more Masses available for the faithful.
• Most. Rev. Dr. Alfred Adewale Martins, Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of Lagos
