This March we mark five years since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, and on March 8 our Cathedral will host a Pandemic Memorial & Gratitude Service to honor the memories of those we lost and express our gratitude for those who persevered and contributed during those challenging years. Bishop Hughes invites everyone to join the service, saying that even as we move into the future, it is important to remember the lessons learned and the people who helped the church and community endure. (Time: 4:13.)
Video Transcript
This is Bishop Hughes in the Diocese of Newark, and I want to talk with you about remembrance and gratitude.
On March 8th, our diocese will gather for a Service of Pandemic Remembrance and Gratitude. It will be a time for us to think intentionally and remember intentionally and honor intentionally the events and the people of that four-year period that began in March of 2020 and continued on well into March of 2024.
Our tendency when we go through something terrifically hard is to bury our dead after it is over, celebrate success, and embrace the future. As a matter of fact, run so fast into the future that we actually forget what happened during the time that was difficult and hard. And I want to offer this thought to us, that one of the things that’s important for us as we go forward, as we do embrace the future and stand firmly into what is coming next, is to remember the things that have happened in our past.
I think one of the things that we’re seeing nationally and globally is a real movement to forget the past, just move on with the future. Forget the things that impacted us, the reasons we made the decisions that we made, and just move on into the future. And there are important events that have happened in our past, important people that have happened in our past, important decisions that have happened in our past, that influence who we are today.
I’m reminded of every time when I gather with my family, even now, with my adult nieces and nephews, one of their favorite things to say is, “Auntie, tell me about the time when…” and there’s always something different about the when, when we did some activity, or when granny and grandpa did something that was funny, they always want to hear about the time. I imagine the same is true in your family, that you get asked those things. The same is true for us as a nation, as global citizens, and especially as church.
We have moved firmly into being a church that God is creating for this particular time, and part of that is because of the lessons that we learned during pandemic. There are people whose lives that we want to remember and not ever forget, and we will name their names at that service. There are people that we need to thank, and in our rush to get to the future, we may not have taken the time to say thank you to them.
The one that always comes to mind to me is a parish that I visited where there was one gentleman who worked nights, got off his shift at 7 in the morning on Sundays, went straight to the church to run the Zoom at 8 a.m., went home at 9, got a shower, and came back to the church to run the Zoom at 10 a.m., and did that for two solid years. I’m sure his parish has said “Thank you” to him and said it very, very well, but it’s a gratitude that we get to carry on with us, to remember his and so many people who persevered during that time. The way they gave selflessly and sacrificially, to make church a place that all of us could access, even if we couldn’t be in the building.
I understand the desire to move forward, but I invite you to spend time with us on March 8th, at 10 a.m., at the Cathedral, where we remember and we honor the people that were special in our lives, and who made that time not only bearable, but made that time hopeful and helped us get through it all. Come join us.
