Thank you to all healthcare workers who are putting in longer hours, dealing with patience with higher acuity than normal, or just continuing to go to work and care for other people even though you may be worried for your own health and your own family.
Thank you to all teachers and educators who are having to adjust quickly and who are still doing your best to try to help provide learning material for the children in your classes, showing your love and dedication under difficult circumstances.
Thank you to all parents who are juggling trying to work from home with teaching your children. I know that there are a lot of snide remarks about there about how people should be happy to have their children at home or about how homeschoolers have been doing it for years. But we're a homeschooling family (and I love and believe in homeschooling) and I know there's a difference between doing it with as a choice with time to make a plan, and having to learn on the fly while there's so much uncertainty and stress. I know it's hard and I know you love your children and I hope and pray that this is a good time for you, and a time that you all look back on fondly.
Thank you to grocery store workers, delivery people, those who work in restaurants, and all other people who have an increased work load during this time, and who are making sure that everyone else can have the supplies they need.
Thank you to all the people sewing masks for those who need them. Your ingenuity, love, and skill amaze me and I'm grateful that you're putting it all to the service of others, almost always without asking for thanks or even so much as to be reimbursed for your supplies. As the husband of a nurse and the son of two people in their 60s, thank you.
Thank you to all my fellow priests and clergy who are trying to figure out how to care for the people that God has entrusted to you during a time that seminary never prepared you for. Thank you for trying to keep your people connected to Christ and for encouraging people, even while your own hearts are breaking at not being able to be with your people and in some cases at not being able to celebrate the services at all.
Thank you to everyone who has seen this time of isolation and distance as a chance to lean in, rather than pull back. To those who have used this time to increase their prayer life, who have increased their giving to the needy, who have checked in on your elderly friends, relatives, and neighbors and have brought them supplies.
Thank you to everyone who has paid attention to when others are struggling and has reached out to them with a kind or encouraging word. There are a lot of people who are frightened, scared, depressed, or anxious. When you check in on them, it might seem like a small thing, but it might save a life, or a soul.
Thank you to anyone that I'm missing and forgetting to say thank you to. This is a scary time. There is a lot that seems uncertain and it's easy to let our fear take over. But at times like this, it's time for us to remember that Christ said that all men would know that we are His disciples if we love each other. It's always time for us to remember that.
And while this all seems scary, God is good. God is very good. This will pass. I've lived long enough to have spent time with people who have suffered greatly. Who are poor, sick, grieving, or lonely. And I've seen in many of them a greater joy than I've ever seen in those who are well off and have few worries. God is with us, never more so than when we suffer.
Let us all go through this together, with zeal, with love, with humility, and service.
I'm grateful for every one of you that God has brought into my life.