From the Chapel — May 8: Going the extra mile

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Our Sunday Visitor chapel. Scott Richert photo

Scott Richert“From the Chapel” is a series of short, daily reflections on life and faith in a time of uncertainty. As people across the world cope with the effects of the coronavirus — including the social isolation necessary to combat its spread — these reflections remind us of the hope that lies at the heart of the Gospel.

I accidentally ran 6.2 miles today.

My wife doesn’t buy that. No one, she says, “accidentally runs” any distance. Unless you find yourself chased by a bear (a fairly unlikely occurrence for most of us), you almost certainly planned to run.

Amy has a point. But when I say that I accidentally ran 6.2 miles, I mean that I was going for five — my daily minimum to keep on schedule to finish the Great Virtual Race Across Tennessee by Aug. 31. But despite the weather being a little cooler and windier than yesterday, the sky was a beautiful deep blue with white, fluffy clouds, and I found myself adding extra tangents to my route. When I arrived back home, I’d gone over 20 percent farther than I intended.

We use the phrase “to go the extra mile” as praise of people who go above and beyond in their service of others. When we think of such people, we don’t imagine them gritting their teeth, unhappy with their lot in life but doing it anyway because it’s expected of them, or because no one else would do it. We picture them instead with a smile on their face, happy to serve because they enjoy what they’re doing, much as I enjoyed that extra time today on country roads I hadn’t run before.

This weekend, in some parts of the country, public Masses will resume for the first time in two or three months. (Here in the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, they will begin again on May 23; in the rest of the dioceses of Indiana, they will resume a week later.) Because of continued guidelines for social distancing, the resumption of public Masses is going to take a lot of effort on the part of our pastors and the pastoral staff of parishes. Since fewer people will be able to attend a single Mass, here in this diocese, Bishop Kevin Rhoades has authorized each priest to celebrate four Masses every Sunday. That’s in addition to continuing to livestream Masses, reinstituting confessions (at a safe social distance), anointing the sick (if doing so can be done safely for the priest), and figuring out just how to make ends meet in parishes that have seen eight or 12 weeks of declining revenue from parishioners.

It’s going to be hard work. Our priests are going to have to go the extra mile. But they’re going to do it with smiles on their faces and joy in their hearts, because this is what they have been called to do. They may not have considered at the time of their calling that days such as these would arrive, but they always knew that following Christ would take them places they never expected to go.

So whether you’re returning to your parish as soon as public Masses resume, or continuing to view your parish’s livestream out of an abundance of caution, look for that smile on your pastor’s face, and find a way to thank him for going the extra mile.

Scott P. Richert is publisher for OSV.

Scott P. Richert

Scott P. Richert is publisher for OSV.