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Were epidemics and/or pandemics part of St. Angela Merici’s experience? The pandemic “Black Death” scourged Europe from 1346 to 1353. When Angela was born (1474), plague was periodic and local. Milan suffered an epidemic in the 1490s and Brescia in 1524, during her time there. People trembled before their vulnerability to disease. There is no […]

Someone was missing from the Sanctuary of St. Angela last week in Brescia. And there was something new.

This was my first visit since the death of Maria Teresa Pezzotti. The long-time leader of St. Angela’s Daughters in Brescia had died last December. As we often rediscover a death through an empty space, my expectation of Maria Teresa in the pew behind me fluttered momentarily, then plunged into reality.