There is a temptation, in seasons of contagion and fear, to retreat inward. The door is closed; the neighbour is a stranger; the stranger is a danger. The retreat wears, at first, the garments of prudence. It is only later, when the season has passed and the count is taken, that we discover what charity was lost at the threshold.

The Church does not ask the citizen to be imprudent. The precautions of the physicians are not the enemy of the Gospel; they are, properly understood, one of its instruments. But the precaution that hardens into indifference, the quarantine that becomes a habit of the heart — these the Church must name for what they are.

On Sunday we shall read, at intercessions in Sant Joan, the names of the Estrella's eleven and of the three correspondents whose whereabouts remain unknown to us. We shall sing 'Patience of the Sea' at the doors. The ordinary precautions will be observed. The doors will remain open.

Charity is not the absence of caution. It is the refusal to let caution become the name we give to fear.