Late June, a Faith & Light summer camp: a twelve-year-old girl with Down syndrome attends without her parents, enjoying a space for friendship—autonomous and safe, beyond the family. Her mother and father arrive one evening to celebrate her birthday. That night, in a circle with everyone gathered for conversation and games, her voice rises, clear and firm. "You should have stayed home!" she says.
A Sunday in July, a provincial town. At Mass, a boy with autism sits with his mother and grandmother. As the service nears its end, he becomes distressed and begins to cry and shout. Among the congregation, someone's voice tells the mother to take him outside—he's disturbing the prayers of others. The friend who tells us this—a Faith & Light member who regularly attends that Mass with disabled adults—says the person is usually kind and welcoming to them, but probably doesn't understand, perhaps because of their age, what it means to be autistic. Fair enough. Yet other voices join in. Despite the mother's pleas, now tearful, that no one can tell her she cannot pray there, and despite the priest inviting everyone to stay after Mass to talk it through together, too many people leave commenting that a child like that has no place at Mass. The friend listens, then steps forward with quiet strength and speaks to the murmuring, judging cluster. He explains that the silent cross beneath which they pray—somewhere near us, within us—lives and cries out, and we must learn to see it, recognize it, and hear it.
Two moments worlds apart. One clear need: FRIENDS who know you and love you for who you are, not what you seem.
We still wonder how to fill our pages, what Faith & Light still means, what a friend's presence—or absence—can do in a life. This month's cover is yours, dear readers. Fill it and color it with your own longings, dreams, and hopes for friendship.