Mass for Shut-ins gives viewers sense of community

A version of this story originally appeared in the Summer 2026 edition of The True Voice magazine. Copies of the magazine can be found at parishes across the archdiocese.

For 30 minutes every Sunday morning, don’t bother calling Fran and Timothy Rhoades’ home in Bellevue.

The couple, both 85, have made it clear to everyone they know: When the Mass for Shut-ins is on TV, the 30-minute service is their sole focus.

“We really appreciate it,” Fran said. “We tell our family not to call us then, because we won’t answer the phone.”

The two are among the thousands within the Archdiocese of Omaha who have benefited from Mass for Shut-ins, which has aired on Sunday mornings on WOWT (previously named WOW-TV) since 1964. A ministry of the Serra Club of Omaha, it brings Mass to people unable to attend in person.

“This is such an important presence,” Archbishop Michael G. McGovern said of the Mass for Shut-ins, which he celebrated five times in his first year.

While the name suggests the broadcast targets older Catholics unable to attend Mass in person, it’s equally important to share the service in hospitals, prisons and
with families of homebound loved ones, said Sally O’Neill, who chairs the Serra Club’s Mass for Shut-ins committee.

The Serra Club’s mission, O’Neill said, “is to promote vocations and personal holiness; that’s what this Mass is all about.”

“Just reading comments from people, we see how much it means,” she said, that they can participate at Mass, “when they otherwise wouldn’t be able.”

Father Walter Nolte, who has served as a celebrant for the Mass for Shut-ins since he was ordained in 2002, knows firsthand the impact the Mass has on those who cannot attend in person.

As pastor of the Padre Pio Family of Parishes, Father Nolte serves Catholics in Fremont, Hooper, Scribner, North Bend and Snyder communities. Every time he celebrates the Mass, emails and letters pour in from viewers thanking him for saying the Mass or telling him that something he said touched them, he said.

It doesn’t surprise Father Nolte. In addition to allowing those who could not otherwise participate in the central act of Catholic worship, the Mass provides them with a
sense of belonging.

“The people who watch the Mass would be so sad without it,” Father Nolte said. “It’s a community for them. Seeing a priest that they know, they don’t feel as isolated.”

Filmed weekly at WOWT studios in Omaha, The Mass for Shut-ins typically airs Sundays at 10:30 a.m. on WOWT (Channel 6 over the air or Cox Channel 8). If other
programming bumps it to a different time or channel – typically 11 a.m. on COZI (Channel 6.2 over the air or Cox Channel 120) – the station will notify viewers in advance.

Jeff Sabin, operations manager for WOWT, said the station knows how important Mass for Shut-ins is to its audience based on the number of calls the station receives when programming necessitates a time change.

“A lot of people depend on this,” he said.

Julie Mattern said her late parents, Charles and Marie Werp, relied on the Mass for Shut-ins for several years, finding the 30-minute service packed with meaning.

Her parents were active at St. Joan of Arc Parish for years, where her father served as a lector. And while they weren’t physically a part of that parish community in the
last years of their lives, they found a new Catholic community on TV – and raised funds for the Mass for Shut-ins through memorials at their funerals.

“They did feel a sense of community because they’d see priests they’d recognize and see where the lectors and musicians were from,” Mattern said. “It felt like home to them.”

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