A Story and Updates on Livestreams for Sunday Mass
Bruce Rhea during the 2016 Pascua Florida Pilgrimage.
Parishioners and friends who watch the weekly Livestream of the Sunday 9:30 Mass at St. Thomas More will have noticed a few interruptions and curious changes over the past few weeks.
Saint Thomas More has live-streamed the Mass since 2014, when Mr. Bruce Rhea offered Fr. Vernoy to set the system in place to help with the growth of the SSPX Florida missions. After Mr. Rhea’s death, the torch for maintaining the Livestream passed to his son Jeff. The system has served Saint Thomas More Church for the past six years, and today hundreds of people from all over the country watch the Livestream or the video of every Sunday Mass.
- March 7-8 of this year – on the weekend of the Lenten recollection given by Fr. McFarland – the Internet went down for the entire neighborhood around the chapel.
- Then, on the first Sunday of the Coronavirus crisis, the Internet provider’s server went down, and their customer service line was not operational. Jeff improvised to broadcast by recording the Mass on a cellphone and uploading it later.
- On the feast day of St. Joseph, the Mass was live-streamed using the webcam on a tablet. Unfortunately, the tablet’s microphone picked up the noise of the chapel’s fan, degrading the sound quality of the broadcast.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going, as the old adage has it. With only 24 hours to do the work and test a new setup, Fr. Duverger asked Bruce’s son Jeff and grandson Kevin – who is very knowledgeable about computers – to explore the possibility of using the camera and sound system in the choir loft and tying it in to a different computer to send the video to YouTube.
Though they pressed for time, while Jeff and Kevin were buying the new equipment they stopped by Bruce’s grave at the cemetery for a quick consultation. “You started it, you fix it!” they pleaded with him. Perhaps they threw in a “please” as well, because six hours later everything was installed and operational, and the work came in under budget. We are told that Bruce often does these things for the parish.
May he rest in peace – and may our faithful continue to benefit from seeing the live-streamed Mass, particularly our friends who are homebound during the pandemic. Be assured of our prayers.
The Sunday 9:30 am Mass as well as one daily mass can be seen on the St. Thomas More YouTube channel at:
https://www.youtube.com/c/SSPXFlorida
