The Times has been asking readers to share stories of living through a pandemic. Here’s a sampling:

When Bishop Michael Cote of the Norwich Diocese ordered all Catholic churches in the diocese to cease the celebration of public Masses due to the pandemic, members of Christ the King Church in Old Lyme sprang into action. We have a vibrant, active parish with broad parishioner involvement in many aspects of parish activity, and we wanted that involvement to continue, despite the stay-at-home order.

Even though religious education classes, committee meetings, choir rehearsals and the like are suspended at this time, our pastor, Father Joe Ashe, and parochial vicar, Father Walter Nagle, are continuing to celebrate the Eucharist privately.

A group of parish leaders wondered how to best broadcast these Masses to the faithful. There were several options: Facebook Live, YouTube Live, stream directly from the parish website, among them. But each of those allowed only a “one-way” celebration of Mass, without any participation from parishioners.

The question was: how do we live-stream the Mass from Christ the King and still include the parishioners who long for that connection to their church, to God, and to each other? Ultimately, we decided to try the video conferencing app Zoom.

We have been live-streaming Sunday Mass from Christ the King Church through Zoom since March 22, and have since added a second weekend Mass and daily Mass. Using Zoom allows parishioners to log on and view the Mass live, but also to sing the hymns, recite the prayers, and even stand and kneel at the appropriate times if they wish — all from their own homes and in real time.

Parishioners can see the priest, and he can see them! (And they can see each other!) Christ the King’s director of music ministries, Bill Thomas, provides music live from his home, and lectors read during the Liturgy of the Word from their homes.

There is a “chat” feature that allows participants to greet each other and exchange Signs of Peace. Because of sound delays, the choir cannot sing live during a Zoom mass. But for Palm Sunday, the choir still provided music: each member recorded their part separately and the music director put them together into one recording, and played it along with a video of the group singing the piece in a Zoom meeting!

Father Joe and Father Walter celebrated Holy Week services — to an empty church — and the parish was there with them via Zoom. We all pray that we will be able to celebrate together again in our beautiful church, soon.

Ellen Cole, Old Lyme

We have been staying at home since March 9; our daughter and her family have been doing so since late February. We are taking advantage of early hours at the grocery store. We have also been ordering meals from local restaurants with curb-side pickup, such as Ryan’s Pub in Groton, Dog Watch Mystic and Mango’s Pizza in the Olde Mistick Village, as it is critical we support our local businesses.

Our grandchildren are ‘distant learning’ daily. On April 9, they were getting ready for a Zoom meeting with cousins and friends for a “home based” learning that my wife was conducting.

David Kenny, Mystic

Since COVID-19, I have learned so much about myself being locked up alone in my world.

The time for rest we have all been given from our demanding lives of work, work and more work has allowed us to breathe a deep breath of existing now in our real world, the world where we write, draw, clean out, discard and regard.

Hope is my new connector to the world: hope for everyone to live better, love more and breathe in the luxury of time. Music blaring like there’s a party going on, but the party is cooking a luscious dinner for myself or making my favorite orange, B, carrot and ginger juice, flavors being enhanced by my dancing feet and free spirit.

I know from the depths of my soul that everything taste better.

More love involved in cooking new recipes tried from Facebook posts, and the excitement for the new, reborn energy I was losing in myself, suddenly found in COVID-19.

I was born on the 19th, is this the relationship I was praying for? It is so far the best one yet, big signs of growth, projections of positivity daily, finding what I have been seeking in myself.

I think my new doctor visits by phone should stay in play. I never like driving to Rhode Island for my arthritis doctor visits. Now I just make sure my blood work is done. I live by a hospital so that’s been easy, but it’s very different too as now they take your temperature at the door before you are OK for entry. When those doors open for you, it’s like going into the valley of death and your only hope is that the process is quick so you can soon run out and back to your safe space.

The psychologist calls are at a depth deeper now. Masks off and not seeing a person makes you be real, no made up stories. I don’t think I could make these up anyway.

I’m so glad I have this outlet to talk freely to someone in this time of seclusion. I always feel better. It feels like Hertz’ “rent a friend.” At times I long for those calls daily but glad for the new tools of self I am finding.

COVID-19, please remember we are in this together now, but June 19 is my birthday. I beg you please give me a reason to celebrate!

Paula Hahn, New London

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