Welcome to The Light, your quiet hour of reflection.
Actor Jim Caviezel says the decision to portray Jesus in Mel Gibson's two thousand four film The Passion of the Christ was not his alone to make. He claims Jesus physically appeared to him, an encounter he describes as the moment his hesitation dissolved. Whatever one makes of that claim, it raises an enduring question about how people discern a calling.
That tension between personal faith and public life surfaces differently in Massachusetts, where Catholic bishops have formally rebuked Governor Maura Healey for invoking her Catholic identity while signing a law permitting abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. The bishops argue that faith cannot be selectively worn, and the exchange reminds us how rarely doctrine and governance find comfortable common ground.
Far from these cultural debates, a Nigerian widow is carrying a grief that asks more of us than argument. She watched Boko Haram militants kill her husband after he named himself a Christian, and this week she joined a delegation delivering a million signatures to Downing Street, urging the world to finally see what persecuted communities have long endured in silence.
Three stories, one thread running through them all, the cost and the weight of what we believe. Carry the light gently.
