A deacon reader sent this story to me this morning, and it’s certainly different:

With all public events and religious ceremonies forbidden in Coronavirus-hit Italy, one parish priest has taken a novel approach to repopulate his church.

Don Giuseppe Corbari, from the small town Robbiano di Giussano in Lombardy, a region devastated by the Coronavirus, made an unexpected appeal to his parishioners last week after his sadness at celebrating Sunday Mass without seeing their faces before him.

“Send me photographs of yourselves, of you and your family, the photo of your face, I need to see faces in front of me when I celebrate Mass next Sunday” – Don Giuseppe appealled – “I will print the photo you send me and I will stick it with sellotape on the pew: it is a way to make me feel less alone.”

Read more. 

The priest reports that he got so many responses, his printer ran out of ink.