"With the pope we have, I've learned that the Holy Spirit is an example of how we can work together, leaving the walls of our institutions and live out our religious life creatively, and I think it's an example of hope. Many sects of religious life dream about doing different things together, not alone. And I think the Spirit is what inspires that path and unity."

GSR Today - We're launching a new feature to share more voices from sisters around the world, and here's how you can help. We hope you will want to be involved in "The Life."

Holding No. 28, my place in line at the pharmacy, I felt my stress level rising. Then the young woman with the smile was telling me that she wanted me to take her one-digit number in exchange for mine. "Really?" I asked. "En serio?"

In the 23 years since the genocide, Rwanda has developed at a faster pace than surrounding countries. In the last decade, a government-mandated monthly day of community service, called Umuganda, has saved the country the equivalent of US$128.5 million, and the service day not only helps repair and clean every community, it provides a way for people to get to know their neighbors.

"Human work, and especially manual labor, receive special prominence in the Gospel. Along with the humanity of the Son of God, work too has been taken up in the mystery of the Incarnation, and has also been redeemed in a special way. At the workbench where he plied his trade together with Jesus, Joseph brought human work closer to the mystery of the Redemption."

"We want to test the resurrection in our bones. To see if we might live in hope, instead of in the silva oscura, the thicket of cultural despair, nuclear despair, a world of perpetual war. We want to taste the resurrection. May I say we have not been disappointed."

- Fr. Daniel Berrigan, as quoted in Redeem the times! A remembrance of Dan Berrigan, published on NCRonline.org

See for Yourself - I had a great conversation recently about nuns and those proverbial "good old days" when nuns ruled Catholic schools, and we're all better people today because of that.

I have a confession to make. I believe in the positive power of government to promote the common good. Yes, that's right, 100 days into the new administration, amid an ongoing toxic political debate with drastic budget cuts on the horizon that will negatively impact people on the margins who are already struggling, I still believe in we the people. 

"The monarch caterpillar focuses on what feeds its growth. What feeds our growth?"