"The Lord really wants there to be a path of fidelity and greater coherence, and I feel that there is great potential in intercongregational work, that the more things we take on intercongregationally, the more we can achieve."

Gratitude is such a profound gift that too often appears only one day a year, on our U.S. holiday of Thanksgiving. Yet this attitude should permeate each and every day of our lives.

GSR Today: The United Nations celebrates the International Day of Happiness on March 20 and World Poetry Day on March 21. I recently celebrated both of them a little early.  

A set of mysterious petroglyphs lie at the heart of the indigenous Ngäbe-Buglé religion and written language — and those petroglyphs now lie at the bottom of a stagnant, foul-smelling reservoir. The flooding caused by the Barro Blanco hydroelectric project nearly three years ago constitutes an ongoing violation of their religious and cultural rights, say Ngäbe-Buglé leaders, in addition to causing widespread damage to orchards, farmland and fishing that the communities depended on for food and livelihood. Sr. Edia "Tita" López of the Sisters of Mercy agrees.

Reform starts with ordinary Catholics because we are the ones who financially support the present failed system. We are complicit in the sins of that system if we are not involved in creating inclusive structures of accountability. 

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Why do Catholics use the same memorized prayers all the time? This Random Nun Clip considers the spiritual value of rote prayers.

A group of city commissioners in the border city of McAllen, Texas, voted in mid-February to remove from a building a popular Catholic-administered center run by Sr. Norma Pimentel, who has been praised by Pope Francis for her work with migrants.

Horizons - When I take stock of the multitude of ways that kindnesses are demonstrated, I find myself humbled by the blessings that are showered upon me every day — by so very, very many "regular" people.

America has a history of oppression of "the other" that renews itself over and over, unfortunately with the approval of our country's citizenry. As once we oppressed slaves, now we oppress refugees. A most painful suffering for slaves in the past and refugees in the present is separation of families.

"Sexual abuse of nuns by clergy has long been a problem in Poland — and it's a very painful matter," Ursuline Sr. Jolanta Olech, secretary-general of the Warsaw-based Conference of Higher Superiors of Female Religious Orders, told Poland's Catholic Information Agency, KAI.