The Catholic faith is a tangible, concrete faith with sacramental signs that reflect and make manifest spiritual realities. Our faith cannot be practiced freely without physical participation in the sacraments. Also, our faith is communal, not private, and its proper expression requires the physical gathering of the community. For over two months, out of concern for the common good, I directed that we as a diocese would make the willing sacrifice to forego our constitutional right to free assembly and the full exercise of our religion. Accordingly, I asked our Catholic faithful to accept this temporary inability to receive holy Communion in a positive spirit as a spiritual fast.