Love Anyway

Some stories stop you in your tracks. Diane Butler Bass’s reflection in The Cottage on a recent event did that for me this week and it opened a door in my heart I didn’t want to walk through but knew I needed to and to write about it.

Reading about Pierre Damas Bel, the young Springfield Haitian student who died by suicide under the weight of humiliation and dehumanization after being fitted with an ICE ankle monitor, I felt something inside me crack. His words “I came here to study… not to be treated like a criminal” carry the ache of someone who simply wanted to belong, to build a future, to be seen as human. And yet the policies, the rhetoric, the crowds who cheered cruelty in our country turned his hope into despair. Bel was a varsity soccer player for Springfield City School District, where he graduated in May. He was on the National Honor Society and a member of the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps. May he rest in the life eternal. 🙏🏻

I couldn’t help but think of ancient Rome.
Of the Colosseum, where terrified men fought for their lives while crowds roared with approval. Of how easily human hearts can be trained to cheer violence, to normalize suffering, to treat another’s pain as entertainment or political strategy.

Sometimes I get overwhelmed by how much hatred can live in the human heart, not just in history, but now. In our neighborhoods. In our politics. In our churches. In our families. In our marriages. In ourselves.

But this story reminded me of something essential, I need to let my heart be broken.

Not hardened.
Not numbed.
Broken.

Because a broken heart can lament.
A broken heart can show mercy.
A broken heart can refuse to cheer when someone else is suffering.
A broken heart can still choose to love.

Paul’s words from our Sunday Mass in Romans echo through all of this: “Love your neighbor as yourself… Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore, love is the fulfilling of the law.”

Love does no wrong.
Not to refugees.
Not to families.
Not to those who are mocked, shackled, or shamed.
Not to those whose names we’d rather forget.

This is the moment to wake from sleep, to refuse silence, to refuse indifference, to refuse the Colosseum‑crowd instinct that still lives in our culture. That lives in each and every one of us.

Let the Gospel preach itself:
Love anyway.
Love fiercely.
Love with lament.
Love with courage.
Love with a heart willing to break open for the sake of another.