The names and concerns of thousands of students and counseling clients have amalgamated into blessings I enjoyed, blessings I struggled to accept, and lessons learned. After nearly 30 years, I still warmly remember one student who taught me a critical lesson.
Ursuline Sr. Larraine Lauter's 10-year-old organization, Water With Blessings, based near Louisville, Kentucky, has distributed filters and prepped thousands of women in maintaining a high-tech water filtering system in Haiti since April 2017.
The day before Sr. Patricia Fox, 71, was scheduled to leave the Philippines where she immersed herself among the poor for 27 years, Global Sisters Report managed to ask her for some parting words.
We all need to be part of the solutions addressing climate change, the greatest issue of our time. But every part of us needs to be part of the solutions. The answers do not lie only in technology or renewable energy or efficient cars — only part of the solution. The foundation to the solutions lies within a spiritual conversion that shifts and expands worldview, while deepening the roots of our soul view.
In Zimbabwe, more than three-quarters of the population lives in rural areas with poor infrastructure and nonexistent roads. The lack of services critically affects expectant mothers in rural areas, who have difficulty getting to necessary health services before and during birth.
A rule finalizing the religious exemption to the contraceptive mandate should be "the end of a long cultural war fight" over the issue and confirm that the U.S. government "never needed nuns to give out contraceptives" to women, said the president of the Becket law firm.
St. Katharine Drexel forged a connection between Xavier University of Louisiana and the Pueblos of New Mexico. As a Sister of the Blessed Sacrament, I have often said that my soul has taken root with the people and the land of New Mexico; however, my heart is at home at Xavier where I have worked for 30 years
In Vietnam, people living with physical disabilities are dependent on their families, who are often unable to do things like afford $400 wheelchairs. For the past two years, the Daughters of Mary Immaculate sisters in Hue city have focused on getting mobility equipment donated from abroad so that people who otherwise could not leave their houses to interact with neighbors, visit family and, importantly, do things like sell lottery tickets to support themselves, can have a fuller life.
Mary Deborah Giles is a Sister of Notre Dame of the Toledo Province, who taught at both the elementary and secondary levels. Her graduate work included a degree in Christian spirituality with certification in retreat and spiritual direction, and a master's degree in Community Counseling. A mental health and addictions therapist licensed in the state of Ohio, she currently ministers at Desert House of Prayer in Tucson, Arizona as a spiritual director.
Horizons - The last two years, for all the turmoil they have contained, have been clarifying in many ways. While the election results have sure implications for the future, so do the lessons learned during this election season.