St. Mary Magdalen Church

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A Sensitive Note on Parish Finances

While Sunday Masses will resume during the weekend of July 4 & 5, the dispensation from the Sunday obligation previously granted to all Catholics of the Archdiocese by the Archbishop will continue to extend through Sunday, September 6, 2020. The elderly, the sick, and those who care for anyone who is vulnerable remain encouraged not to attend at this time.

Please attend only if you feel it is safe and if you do not display symptoms of COVID-19.

You may still submit your weekly/monthly collection envelopes, mail them into the Parish Office, (St. Mary Magdalen at 145 Buckingham Street, Oakville, CT 06779)

We recommend Signing up for On-Line Giving

Online Giving is a safe, secure and dependable means of income for the parish.

Thank you for your continued support.

Returning to Sunday Worship!

Dear Saint Mary Magdalen Parishioners,

We are happy to announce that public Sunday Masses will begin on the weekend of July 4/5. We will follow our traditional weekend schedule: Vigil Mass, Saturday, 4pm / Sunday Masses 8:30 a.m. and 10:30 a.m.

Confessions Saturday, 3-3:30 p.m. at St. Mary Magdalen.

According to the current guidelines, Masses celebrated indoors are limited to 100 persons, maximum, or less according to the guidelines for social distancing.

When you come to Mass, you are required: 1.) to wear a face covering, 2.) to bring your own hand sanitizer, 3.) to remain 6 feet apart from anyone who is not a member of your household and 4.) to observe any other required precautions.

NO social gatherings are permitted either before or after Mass, including the parking lot.

Currently we are not celebrating daily Mass at St. Mary Magdalen, but Mass is offered at St. John the Evangelist at 12:10 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, Thursday and Friday. Daily Mass is also offered at other area churches. St. John the Evangelist Church offers the opportunity for Confessions on Saturday afternoons 3:30 - 4:30p.m. & Monday evenings from 6p.m. - 7:00p.m.

The dispensation from the Sunday obligation previously granted to all Catholics of the archdiocese by the Archbishop is extended through Sunday, September 6, 2020.

Who Shouldn’t Come to Mass: Elderly who maybe compromised, those with pre-existing conditions, those who are fearful or anxious, and those who are taking care of a sick or homebound person need not be concerned if they miss Mass as the dispensation from the Sunday obligation has been extended.

Anyone in those categories is asked to continue taking advantage of televised Masses or Masses streamed online as they stay home and stay safe.

Each person is responsible to determine whether he or she should attend, but you are not under the obligation to attend Mass.

Public celebration of Sunday Masses will begin July 4/5

6/19/2020
The Archdiocese of Hartford has made the following announcement:

Resuming Public Worship on Sundays in the Archdiocese of Hartford

Churches in the Archdiocese of Hartford will be able to reinstitute the celebration of public Sunday Masses beginning the weekend of July 4 & 5, 2020.

Continuing to follow the required Archdiocesan procedures and respecting the current limits set by Governor Ned Lamont, Sunday Masses can take place beginning that weekend either indoors with a maximum of 25% of the church capacity or 100 total persons, whichever is less, socially distanced, or outdoors with a maximum of 150 persons, socially distanced.

As has been the case throughout the response to the coronavirus, the Archdiocese of Hartford will continue to track the situation surrounding the pandemic and will offer any and all updates deemed necessary to these current guidelines.

Please stay connected for more information.

Additional information about times and procedures for St. Mary Magdalen Parish will be communicated later this week.

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My Parish App

To receive St. Mary Magdalen Parish updates and other important communications please, download to your cell phones.

Stay in Touch Download Our Parish visit: https://myparishapp.com to download or text app to phone number 88202.

Sending Your Condolences to Fr. Tom's Family

Dear Parishioniers, and Friends,

We pray that you are giving yourselves time to grieve the passing of our Pastor, Fr. Tom Hickey. We’ve been getting some questions regarding donations in Fr. Tom name and offering condolences. We offer this to you, to help comfort your needs to express your sympathies, until we can come together once more.

Here’s how:

If you want to share your sympathies to the Hickey Family, please send all forms of correspondences in care of:

St. Mary Magdalen Parish
145 Buckingham Street
Oakville, CT 06779

OR By email at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

If you would like to make a memorial contribution in Father Tom’s name, you may do so making checks payable to St. Mary Magdalen Church.

The donor’s name and gift will be acknowledged to his family and also you will receive a note from the parish office.

Thank you for your continue prayers and support during this time of sorrow.

Peace and Blessings,
Roberta Hardt
Parish Admin.

Welcome to St. Mary Magdalen Church

church

FAITH WORSHIP SERVICE

St. Mary Magdalen Parish is a Catholic Community,
United in Faith and Joined in Worship
Connecting People to Christ and Living to Serve Others.

A study of the life of Saint Mary Magdalene is a source of profound encouragement. We can only marvel to see such a poor broken sinner rising from darkness in an explosion of love for Christ and then running with the greatest confidence along the way of perfection. She emerges from the desperate ruins of her life and becomes heaven’s champion of love. So pleasing was she to the heart of Christ that she is chosen to announce His Resurrection to the apostles themselves… If Jesus chose her for this singular privilege it was to give us all hope. The first apostle of the Resurrection is not a soul who had been pure and perfect from childhood but rather a poor broken sinner from whom were expelled seven demons… She is hope for sinners and thanks to her we know that though our sins be as scarlet, in Christ we can become whiter than snow. If we follow the path of love traced out by the Apostle to the Apostles then at the moment of death we will be able to go in peace to the One who is the friend of sinners.

Even joyful meditation upon the resurrection… could never entirely erase the bitter memory of the price paid for her sins… On His risen glorious body she had noticed that there were still some trace of His wounds, as though to remind her not to forget them. Although she was profoundly happy and at peace in the depths of her heart, her life became a bittersweet contemplation of the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of Jesus. She saw this as the natural extension of her vocation to love Christ in a radical way during His mortal life. She was powerless to repay the Lord for His goodness to her; all she could do was to continue to love Him radically through prayer. For the remaining decades of her holy existence and amidst the activities and adventures life threw at her, she would try to spend as much time as possible contemplating the memory of Jesus with all the fervent love of her undivided heart. This would permit her to bear the burden of earthly life, in anticipation of the life of heaven. Eventually this love for Christ led her away from the crowds and to the lonely grotto of Sainte Baume where she could peacefully end her days in a life of perpetual pondering of the Paschal Mystery. She passed from an earthly ecstasy to the heavenly ecstasy… Such a soul needed no more purification, for she had been dead to the world for decades.

For Magdalene, life was Christ and death was gain (Phil. 1:21)

Whom have I in heaven but thee?

And there is nothing upon earth that I desire besides thee.

My flesh and my heart may fail,

but God is the strength of my heart and my portion for ever…

But for me it is good to be near God. (Ps 73:25-28 RSV)

The life of Saint Mary Magdalene, which once seemed to be the greatest of failures to all of Israel, was in the eyes of all heaven a success of the highest order. In heaven her life is remembered and honored as that of an earthly angel of love.

-Fr. Sean Davidson, Saint Mary Magdalene, Prophetess of Eucharistic Love,

Ignatius Press, pp. 197, 203-204.