Our lady of refuge covid impacts

By Ruby C.

Our Lady Of Refuge is a special and important place in San Jose for the Catholics. Starting March 2020 things changed completely due to the world wide pandemic. Interviewing this person really helped me get a perspective of the church and attending the church. Interviewing a church goer, meaning someone who attends the church, really helped me get an understanding of how they feel at the church, but interviewing a church pastor helped me understand the questions I had in mind and the meaning of Our Lady Of Refuge church.

Source: D Snyder from Google Images

According to www.ourladyofrefugesj.org mentioning the Weekly Collection & Donations Summary Report. The money donated to the church is really important for the church's monthly expenses. You would think the maintenance money isn't much but there are so many bills that need to be paid.

Almsgiving in the church is really important because it is what completes the payments. Almsgiving is the act of donating money or goods to the poor or performing other acts of charity. Almsgiving is performed in the middle and end of church. People will go around in a basket and you put how much money you desire.

I got to see some really good information about the Total Sunday offerings & other donations from the month. The money varied on each Sunday; some Sundays were better than others. The numbers vary every Sunday and change just depends on how many people attend.

Source: Photo from “Our Lady of Refuge Parish- Diocese of San Jose” on Facebook

Interviewing church staff; Artuto Reyes, “A member that is at the church 6 days a week,” got to really answer my questions about the church and about how safe they feel being at church after covid. The main question I wanted to be answered was how comfortable he felt attending church with all the new covid restrictions. Reyes answered “Currently I feel safe cause I already have both of my vaccines.”

Some following questions I asked were how often do you go to church and how comfortable do you feel at church. Reyes answered “Well I work at the church so I am here 6 days a week and I feel safe and I feel very comfortable.” Although many things changed after covid Reyes still said he felt very comfortable at Our Lady Of Refuge Church.

To ask about a different topic I asked Reyes if he feels at peace when he goes to church and if there is something that he wishes was different. He answered “Currently no, I feel very much at peace.”

Due to my questions about the church monthly bills and the church being different with all the covid restrictions I asked Reyes if the church was more full before covid or after covid and if more or less people were attending now, Reyes answered with “Well were doing the counting every week and we currently see the numbers have not declined so there still the same than before covid.”

To talk to Arturo more about Our Lady Of Refuge Church I wanted to know if all catholics should attend the Sunday mass. Reyes said “Yes I accept fully believe all catholics should attend the mass.” Which I think is up to every catholic and how close they are to the church. I wanted to know if his faith in god grew more and more when he attended church and reyes said “ definitely yes it does”

To sum up my interview with Arturo Reyes and this story I asked him what was the best memory he had at Our Lady of refuge, and he answered with a very meaningful answer. Reyes said “The best memory that I am going to keep even though we had covid, a lot of people were still helping out.” As a result, due to covid our church Our Lady Of Refuge is still going, and even though some months are rougher than others the church is still taking place and people are still attending because their faith in god never stops.