"In the face of the challenges that I feel overwhelming us, let us dare to create beauty. Beauty can re-create us in hope."

The Life - Too far away. Too close. Culture or charism? Church changes. Lifestyle changes. Holding preferences lightly. The panelists relate what they found most difficult about religious life, both when they entered community and — for some — even now. Influences of culture, of charism, of age all play a role. They addressed this question: What was your most challenging adjustment to religious life?

Pope Francis named a Spanish nun who had served as a missionary in South Korea to be the new undersecretary of the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life.

The Vatican announced Feb. 23 the appointment of Sister Carmen Ros Nortes, a member of the Sisters of Our Lady of Consolation.

Born in southeast Spain, Dec. 20, 1953, she earned degrees in theology, catechetical pedagogy and humanities, and obtained her licentiate in theology, specializing in Mariology, in Rome in 1985.

See for Yourself - Typically we wish that an aggravating or maddening experience had never happened, but taking a few moments to reflect on the event can often teach us wisdom.

The church's understanding of social sin calls us to see these admittedly individual acts as part of the larger social fabric of the human community. That is where we each have personal responsibility to see, to name, and to act. 

"Come into the presence of the living God about whom nothing can be said. Don't think it. Breathe it."

Srs. Alexandra Bonilla Leonel, Iselande Surlin and volunteer Marcela Latorre Velásquez work as a team in the city of Ouanaminthe, Haiti, located at the Haitian-Dominican border. They spoke with GSR about serving the needs of children and women. They work on migration and against human trafficking.

There is a need for congregations to grapple more deeply with interculturality as a counterpoint to the global trend toward stronger borders and nativism, one sister said. 

"Her prompt and efficient intervention saved us," says one fisherman, home in India after being detained in Iran. In her 15 years in Tamil Nadu's coastal towns, Sr. Josephine Amala Valarmathi of the Missionary Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary has handled scores of cases for Indian migrant workers. She has also made it her priority to organize awareness programs to help such workers avoid exploitation.

"I'm happy to be here because the people need us. Sometimes you get there, there's no road — you have to create the road for yourself. … It's a kind of joy, you know."