"There is no time like the present for God to draw near, to break through in our lives, to speak truth to power and to find a dwelling place with the most marginalized. No patient people these!"

During Advent 2015, I was midway through chemotherapy for recurrent ovarian cancer and shared the journey in a Global Sisters Report series called "Inter-Mission." The liturgical season helped me move from fear to hope. It's Advent again

Sr. Mary Nguyen Thi Mai is the superior of the Society of Missionaries of Charity, The society includes nearly 670 members, has 42 communities and 12 centers throughout Vietnam which serve orphans, people with physical disabilities and elderly people without relatives. Mai spoke to GSR about the newly established society overcoming challenges and sustaining itself in a developing country.

"Am I not here, I, who am your mother? Are you not under my shadow and protection? Am I not the source of your joy? Are you not in the hollow of my mantle, in the crossing of my arms? Do you need something more?"

GSR Today - Catholic Legal Immigration Network (CLINIC) and seven other immigrant-rights organizations filed a complaint Dec. 7 with the Department of Homeland Security's Office of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties and Office of Inspector General.

Facing the realities of the extractive industries' push against pristine public lands and recent actions by the Trump administration to reduce the size of two national monuments that are significant to Native Americans, spiritual leaders believe in miracles and prayer.

The Souljourners program, a ministry of the Benedictine Sisters at Mount St. Scholastica, is a three-year program for spiritual directors. Ecumenism is key to the program. The experts who instruct students come from all Christian faith backgrounds. The sisters describe the form of direction they teach as "contemplative-evocative."

"We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God always needs to be born."

In the Middle Ages, the idea of spiritual motherhood was quite popular among both women and men. St. Bernard of Clairvaux, a Cistercian, understood his role as abbot to be "Mother." St. Francis of Assisi described himself as a mother to his brothers, and Meister Eckhart wrote, "We are all meant to be mothers of God, for God always needs to be born."