Visitor Columnist

Easter once felt like news. The shock of the empty tomb. The sought-after account of the first witness. The soaring and inexplicable triumph of it all.

Jean Vanier, Canadian writer, philosopher and humanitarian who died May 7, was a champion for people with intellectual disabilities and touched countless lives through his constant message of love.

Sister Brenda Hernandez Valdes, a 34-year-old Daughter of Immaculate Mary of Guadalupe, lives more than 1,500 miles from her home in Coahuila, Mexico, serving the sprawling Diocese of Bismarck, N.D., and ministering to the Hispanics working in its booming oil industry.

While lay people honor their legacy, women religious are hosting events of their own – not to pat themselves on the back but to pay it forward, to continue their work of healing a fractured nation.

Any Catholic with even a cursory familiarity with recent news has more than enough information to inspire him to a life of prayer and penance.

My task at hand: editing a cover story about three Catholic families who had taken radical leaps of faith.

Let this Valentine’s Day be an opportunity to lift up people and show we appreciate them.

Many, perhaps millions, of Hispanics are frightened. Yes, today, in the United States of America, many of our Hispanic Catholic sisters and brothers live in a permanent state of fear.