If pastoral leaders want to be "prophetic disciples" who call others into a closer relationship with Christ, they must first experience Christ's presence in their own lives, Sr. Miriam James Heidland told more than 1,000 attendees of the Mid-Atlantic Congress Feb. 15 in Baltimore.

When my view of religious life was shaken to the core, a spectacle of dolphins I once witnessed totally altered my perspective and became a great spiritual teacher. 

For the Adorers of the Blood of Christ, the U.S. Supreme Court's decision not to hear the order's religious freedom claims in a legal challenge to a natural gas pipeline through their land in Pennsylvania came as no real surprise.

Notes from the Field - Although I still have a couple of months left with VIDES, I've had some major takeaways from this experience so far. I have also come to discover that first opinions are actually not everything. I had many expectations and visions of how this year of service would turn out.

NCR Connections: It is difficult to not see grand possibilities in this meeting of unlikely communities, ill-defined as the one might be. It is early in their meeting, but the nuns and "nones" seem to be embarking on an organic exploration of community, contemplation, spirituality.

Rome - The heads of Catholic religious orders around the world apologized to clergy abuse survivors Feb. 19, acknowledging in a rare joint statement that orders habitually denied accusations in the past and covered up for abusers.

"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.