COVID lockdowns and restrictions have not stopped the Spanish chaplaincy community in Auckland from getting together for spiritual support and fellowship, but rather challenged them to find new ways of gathering.

Chaplain to the Spanish community, Fr Alejandro de la Sotta says the pandemic restrictions in New Zealand have resulted in the birth of a new YouTube ministry for the community.

“From August to December 2021 we were in lockdown, Phase 4,” Fr Alex says.

“At this stage, we couldn’t meet in the church, but we started some activities by Zoom.

“We met every Wednesday at 8pm where we read the Gospel for the following Sunday and then I shared a small reflection on the Gospel. Next, I shared some questions to encourage sharing in small groups of four people and then people were freely invited to “share what was shared” with the rest of the groups.”

On top of that, since Pentecost last year Fr Alex has been uploading videos on YouTube every Tuesday with the proclamation and reflection of the Gospel to bring the Word of God to homes in a different way.

“These videos are in Spanish, but I have added English subtitles to encourage our English-speaking parishioners to watch the videos as well,” he says. “The YouTube channel is Refleccionando desde Auckland and I invite everyone to watch it”.

With the reduction of some restrictions, the Spanish chaplaincy community has returned to the church to gather to celebrate the Eucharist.

“We had the blessing of being able to celebrate Christmas and I could see how happy people were to be able to get together again,” he says.

“In some way, I feel that it was good that people missed the Eucharist a little so that we realise how important it is in our spiritual life.

“Many said that they changed the phrase: ‘I have to go to Mass because it is Sunday’ to ‘I need and want to go to Mass because I miss it’. I feel that this has been a blessing and has encouraged people to freely mature spiritually since they have had to find new ways to celebrate Lord's Day.”

The introduction of Vaccine Passes in New Zealand has seen the Spanish community change parishes, to meet at the parish of St John where Fr Alex is working and not in the parish where they previously met, where a Vaccine Pass was required.

“I decided not to ask for a “Vaccine Pass” since the Latin American community is small and we don't go over 100 people in our celebrations,” he says.

“To my great surprise, many people from the parish (where we DO ask for the Vaccine Pass), who do not speak or understand Spanish, began to come to the Mass because they liked that it was an open Mass for all. What a nice lesson, and for me, it seems like a great vision of reality from the Gospel. The congregation is still under the required 100 people.”

“Since Sunday, January 23, the government has decided, due to the arrival of the Omicron variant in New Zealand, to return to stricter rules in this type of event. We will continue to meet up to a number of 50 people and we trust that all this will improve.”