From A Nun's Life podcasts - The church year gives a name to the space between: ordinary time, with its own color and feel, when we focus on living the life of Christ, day in and day out.

Cross of Chavanod Sr. Catherine Bernard, founder-director of the Service and Research Institute on Family and Children in India, believes God has chosen her to be a family life professional in an era of family breakdowns.

Caracas, Venezuela - Amid a spiraling economic crisis, the government is accused of authoritarianism. Among the protesters is Dominican Sr. Zulay Luján: "My goal is to be with the people, not with any political group, but with the people who are struggling." Protests here were sparked April 1 when the country's Supreme Court attempted to strip the National Assembly, the only opposition-controlled branch of government, of its powers. Protests have continued roughly four days a week since.

Notes from the Field - Our producers are a powerhouse group of women whose internal strength is seen in the way they carry others and continue to be resilient when encountering trauma.

The School Sisters of Notre Dame, when our foundress was still around in the mid 1800s, had a problem with the archbishop of Munich: They wanted to lead the congregation themselves, without being overseen by a male director. What she and the sisters did can be applied to women religious today.

"Let us become the first generation that decides to be the last that sees empty classrooms, lost childhoods, and wasted potentials."

Three months after India's theologians and Catholic religious pressed a congress of bishops to act aggressively against a wave of sex abuse cases involving priests, no official response has come.

In June, Domincan Sr. Mary Dorothea Sondgeroth received a Catholic Health Association Lifetime Achievement Award for her 35 years of service in Jackson, Mississippi. Coming to the state in 1963, she  spent 17 years as president of St. Dominic Health Services, retiring in 2011 and becoming the associate executive director of the St. Dominic Health Services Foundation. 

A simple act by a Sister of St. Joseph spoke volumes about how to practice the love of God in everyone and anyone without analysis, hesitation or debate regarding the recipient's deservedness to receive that love.

"Let all guests who arrive be received like Christ, for he is going to say, 'I came as a guest, and you received me.' "