From National Catholic Reporter: Amid today's hostility and incivility, reflect on the sanctity of words. They are the way that we invite others in, to give them some understanding of who we are. If our souls are holy, then so too are words.

GSR Today - This year was gut-wrenching, but we found inspiration in women religious who confronted suffering by welcoming the stranger, helping the poor and building peace.

Contemplate This - I offer this meditation adapted from this Franciscan expression of the Beatitudes written by Capuchin Br. John Francis Samsa, "The Beatitudes of Christ: Embrace the Challenge." I encourage you to take some time as the old year ends and reflect on these lives as well as others for whom you are grateful. Reflect on those people or situations that gratuitously offer you hope and whose lives made our world a better place.

The Life - Sister panelists talk about how they and their communities are responding to Pope Francis' apostolic exhortation Gaudete et Exsultate. In the document, they recognize a call to personal holiness, finding God in practical ways in everyday life, and its emphasis on the Beatitudes as an "identity card" for Christians.

Horizons - It's impossible to overemphasize the centrality of love in our beautiful tradition. The mystery of love is inexhaustible, present at the beginning when God brought forth all that is, singing in Jesus' incarnation, life, death and resurrection, pulsing through each of us as Spirit, and drawing us to a future where peace and justice will reign forever. This Christmas, I was reminded again what it's really all about: Love.

Sr. Wendy Beckett, the contemplative who became an unlikely television celebrity after hosting art programs on BBC and American public television throughout the 1990s, died Dec. 26 at a care facility near the Carmelite monastery where she lived in a trailer hermitage. She was 88.

GSR Today - To better put the year into perspective, I asked a number of sisters their thoughts on 2018. Was it a good year? A bad year? Hopeful? A slog? And what may 2019 bring?

The proclivity to overlook black women and girls doesn't begin with their deaths at the hands of law enforcement. Data suggests institutions like hospitals and schools have routinely disregarded the needs of black women and black girls for years. And that's exactly where some sisters in the Baltimore area have seen an opportunity for change.

Friendship is like a stunning landscape where one enjoys every tree and pebble and bush and flower. Walking the roads of life in this kind of landscape is delightful, even enchanting. With loving friends, the human need for belonging is satisfied. Friends steady us, helping us to be ready and secure in decision-making, and calm and adept in follow-through.

In the midst of the momentous events in 1968, as a 19-year-old, I professed my first vows as a Franciscan sister. Fifty years later, I find myself a golden jubilarian. How did that happen?