While I like the idea of learning from my predecessors, I prefer the imagery of anchors instead of pillars. Anchors allow for movement. But mine are gradually disappearing and I'm not liking it one bit.
Help us, Lord, to shift our focus from other nations like China or Russia and turn it inward to ourselves. We need to recognize the need to come together, to find common ground, and rewrite our own history.
Why does Paul seem to contradict himself when he insists that women in Corinth should have their heads covered for praying and prophesying publicly in their liturgical assemblies?
Scripture for Life: The litmus test for people of any faith and spirituality today is the measure of how deep their active compassion is for the "other" among them which also includes non-human life, the new migrants of climate change.
Catholic social teaching makes it clear: it's not enough to be a good person. It's not enough to volunteer at or donate to our local food pantry. These things are good and important and commendable. But they're not enough.
Violence has not brought about peace for over 200,000 years of the existence of the human species. Why do we think it will work today? And yet we continue to choose it, over and over again.
"Who made the sky?" "Why can't I see my eyes?" At my ripe old age, my world of wonder is still alive, but I don't think my questions are as interesting as my 4-year-old nephew's. And that's allowed.
On the morning of Sept. 17, I stood outside the temporary monastery of the Benedictine Sisters at Kylemore Abbey in Ireland. I felt a peace like I felt nowhere else. The previous days, in Rome, had been intense.
We, as followers of a God so often made manifest through collective liberation, don't have to wait for top-down change. This synodal process is a path that we are all making.
Living in "sundown towns," a visit to a cultish colony in Idaho, and an encounter with the Westboro Baptists in Kansas: These are places I've encountered examples of white Christian nationalism.
The sounds of church bells and the Muslim call to prayer five times a day remind us that even in their struggles, people in Bedouin communities in the Judean desert of the West Bank continue to rely on God.
Sisters with their own hands and feet were the foundation, the path and the grounds for many others who are now following. The stories of congregations should inspire religious and laypeople to continue the charisms.
Most parishioners I meet either remember the sisters who taught them in pre-Vatican II habits or they have never actually met a sister in real life. This, it seems, is a big part of bearing public witness to religious life in the world today: being human and being present.
From the beginning, God has seen women as co-creators. And if we are truly driven by our belief in Jesus, we cannot remain silent about the status of women in society, or the practices that suppress and dehumanize women.
A long time ago (40 years to be exact) in a land far away (northern Indiana), I think I functioned as a deacon. I performed diaconal tasks and duties. I think I was a deacon … or was I not?
Many people seem to view leadership as a place to show might and prestige, rather than a place of service. This reminds me of two women close to Jesus who asked for favors from him.
Through the story of young Magdalena Gomez Gregorio and her family — witnesses to adversity and unexpected support during the August 2019 immigrant raid at food processing plants in Morton, Mississippi — Sr. María Elena Méndez reveals in her column for GSR an inspiring story of how courage can transform pain into a beacon of hope and unity.
The news of migrants killed, injured or harassed as they try to enter the United States should horrify us and drive us to action. Their lives matter. The human right to migrate matters.