Many religious congregations support the program Asylee Women Enterprise, which has helped over 400 women asylum-seekers achieve independence. The congregations provide volunteering, housing for the women and financial aid for the center's program. The first woman who came to them, just before Christmas 2010, was pregnant and fleeing war-torn Afghanistan. "Sarah" had nowhere to go and didn't know anyone in her new country, where she hoped to gain asylum. The Benedictine Sisters of Baltimore took her in, and her baby boy was born on Jan. 6, the feast of the Epiphany.

"If we humans decide to break down all the barriers that separate us from one another and to see ourselves as intricately connected to one another, to the environment and to all of creation, we will have gone one step toward an end to all wars."

Real leaders help us to come out of our cocoons. They move our hearts to conversion; they motivate and inspire what is noble in the human soul. Real leaders model what I call "embracing the other."

A key part of Maryknoll Sr. Elizabeth Zwareva's ministry at the U.N. has been focused on nuclear disarmament. Given the current tensions between the United States and North Korea, GSR asked her for her thoughts about the current conflict and broader peace-related issues.

"From the east, house of light may wisdom dawn in us so we may see all things in clarity; From the north, house of the night may wisdom ripen in us so we may know all from within; From the west, house of transformation may wisdom be transformed into right action so we may do what must be done; From the south, house of the eternal sun may right action reap the harvest so we may enjoy the fruits of planetary being."

"Reprehensible," "unconscionable," "historic injustice," "cruel," "disgraceful": As deportation hangs over 800,000 people, sisters and other Catholic leaders react to the Trump administration's announcement that it will end Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals.

There were two things I most wanted to see in my life: Denali and the solar eclipse of 2017. Though I didn't see them, there was grace in the not-seeing.

How are we to be in the face of such intolerable and un-American hatred? What if we were to look right into the face of the hatred that is eating so many of us alive?

"Each charism has its place. Each charism fulfills a need. And just as each charism is lived out by members of specific religious congregations, each charism embodies the spirit of a religious foundation and utilizes the gifts of that foundation's members toward the same end: the glory of God and living of the Gospel."

Several Sisters of Divine Providence are working to sustain impoverished ethnic villagers in the Binh Phuoc Province, bordering Cambodia. They have been working with Stieng ethnic villagers in An Khuong Parish since last August when they built a convent. The parish has 700 Catholics among the population of about 7,000. Many villagers live on incomes of $31-44 per month and suffer from starvation, so the nuns cooperate with a group of local Catholic women and Fr. Joseph Nguyen Minh Chanh to give pastoral care to parishioners and help feed ethnic villagers.