"Our hearts are so tender. All of our emotions right at the surface. Laughter. Tears. Closer than ever."
That line is spoken in the new season of "The Chosen." If you haven't heard of it yet, do consider going to see it. While previous seasons of the show have streamed, this new installment will be showing in theaters.
Whatever your faith, it hits to the core of life.
I confess I cried while watching the first three episodes the night before their release. (The theater screenings will be made up of two or three episodes each.)
Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in the show about the life and teachings of Christ, and Elizabeth Tabish, who plays Mary Magdalene, stopped by before the preview I attended. Whoopi Goldberg was in attendance as well. If you ever watch "The View," which Goldberg co-hosts, you might have the sense that she and I disagree on several issues. And yet there is something uniting about scripture. Which is part of why "The Chosen" is a beautiful contribution to our cultural lives. (Roumie appeared on "The View" earlier in the day, and Goldberg and others on the panel shared their fondness for the series.)
"The Chosen" resonates because of the humanity of the characters. It's not preaching.
Watching the start of the new season, I couldn't help but think of the recent March for Life in Washington, D.C. I've been going for decades and was not sure how many people might come two years after the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. But it was overwhelming to see how many young people came out. For the second year in a row, I spoke at a conference of Ivy League students who meet the day after the march. My panel discussed the pro-life cause in the wake of the end of federally legal abortion.
At first, the students wanted to know about politics and what grand strategies we had to somehow make things better (my fellow panelists were a former Democratic congressman and a Republican White House official).
But we soon began to discuss more everyday issues, about how to live virtuously and make a real difference in the world.
In one of the first episodes of the new season of "The Chosen," there is a moving exchange about forgiveness.
Jesus tells Matthew that forgiveness is a gift. You don't apologize to get forgiveness. You apologize to repent. The forgiveness part is not a given. Regardless, repenting is the right thing to do.
There is much for us to repent for. Our personal and community relationships and public policies must be about supporting families. Politically and personally, we've failed in this regard. And it's unconscionable that even churches have fallen short.
One of the blessings of "The Chosen" is the reminder that the Bible is not just some book, but a historic reality that speaks to our every minute of life.
The next time you read a headline that infuriates you, think about the lessons of the Bible and the message of "The Chosen," and try to be a better, kinder, more loving person. It's so much more important than who the next president will be. Our politics don't often acknowledge or reflect that. But we need to meet each other in that reality.
(Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book "A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living." She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@nationalreview.com.)