This video and the text below are excerpted from the Rt. Rev. Alan Gates’s Address to our Diocesan Convention on Saturday, November 7, 2020.

Finally, I want to return to the pandemic context of our lives these days. We are weary. We are anxious. We are sad. We yearn for the physical fellowship we cherish, the sacred spaces we treasure, the sacramental meals we crave, the joyful singing for which we pine. One day these yearnings will be fulfilled.

At the moment, however, we know that infection rates are surging and the Governor this week issued revised, tightened restrictions. Your three bishops in the Commonwealth are receiving new guidance from public health professionals, and you should expect further communication from us in the days ahead. For now, I must reiterate the strong cautions included in previous guidelines. Reality-based restraint is essential, especially as regards indoor, in-person gatherings that will become ever more challenging and risky as cold weather descends. Advent and Christmas simply will not, cannot, be observed with many of our cherished traditions this year. It will be a year, instead, for small, quiet, contemplative possibilities–perhaps not unlike the stony stable in Bethlehem shared by that little family at the Incarnation, where the original star of hope prevailed against stony hearts.

Last week I was talking with my 97-year-old mom about the limitations of COVID, and our fatigue as this crisis stretches on. How, I wondered, did everyone manage throughout the four long years of World War II? (My mom was 17 at the time of the Pearl Harbor attack.) Well, she said, we just did what we had to do. She reminisced about food restrictions and ration coupons for things like sugar. She spoke of limited movement, of not traveling from Massachusetts to Maine to see family on account of gas rationing.

But then, mostly, she talked about the six young men she knew from her hometown, Bedford, who died in the war: two of her high school classmates; two from the class ahead of her; two from the class behind her. After seventy-five years, she recalled each one by name. She recollected what part of town they lived in. Which one had been an orphan. Whose family had immigrated from Latvia. What work their parents did. Whose surviving brother was a Bedford cop for subsequent decades. It was a phenomenal demonstration of memory.

But it demonstrated something else as well. It spoke about priorities in a time of crisis. When I asked her how people had endured four years of restriction and anxiety, her answer mostly dwelled upon those who’d died–upon the deep loss to their families and community. Sugar and gas rations and lost opportunities endured by everyone else were recollected as inconveniences, but they were not the tragedy, they were not the sacrifice. I say once again that when you and I think about the COVID-19 pandemic, we must never lose sight of the fact that the restrictions and losses that most of us face–while real, and resulting in frustration and grief–do not compare with the loss of life suffered by pandemic victims–1.2 million of them–and their loved ones.

And that is why masks are a sign of Love; and that is why closed concert halls and closed churches are a sign of Love. And that is why economic deprivation at every level is a sign of sacrificial Love. And that is why the notion of acceptable collateral loss of life in order to minimize economic hardship should be anathema to us.

When my mother’s answer to “how did you endure?” was to talk about baked bean and brown bread sales at the church, and to name the boys who didn’t come home, what she was talking about was Community. Question: How did you endure? Answer: Community. My intention is not to romanticize the small-town 1930s and 40s experience of my mother’s growing up. I simply mean to say that in her context, the way four years of war was endured was Community. And so it is for us.

So, dear friends, go forth and be the Church in Community. Physically-distanced, yes. Masked, yes. Gathering mostly virtually, yes. Sad and anxious and tired, yes. Worried and grieving and impatient, yes. But loved, and capable; blessed to be a blessing; serving those who need you; hopeful, by disposition; hopeful, as an act of will; and empowered by the Holy Spirit. Be Community. Be the Church. Be the Body of Christ, as I know that you can be. Be the Body of Christ, as you know that you are.