Throughout the coronavirus crisis, there have been countless “next-door saints,” as Pope Francis describes them. They include volunteers working with their parishes and Catholic Charities, who responded to the increased demand by the needy who were homeless, jobless and without food. They include priests in hospitals, nursing homes and churches who ministered to the sick and the dying. Some of them, following the example of St. Charles Borromeo, walked through their neighborhoods or flew above Fairfield County with the Blessed Sacrament, offering prayers and blessing to abate the COVID pandemic.

Msgr. Gregory J. Fairbanks, a church historian who is Dean of the School of Diaconal Formation at St. Charles Borromeo Seminary in Wynnewood, Penn., says that during plagues and pandemics, heroism has been a common characteristic demonstrated by followers of Christ. And these periods of crisis have proven to be the times “when the greatest saints are born.”  Read more →