After decades doing peace work, seeking truth and reconciliation for Canada's indigenous people, and in short-term healing work with communities in Africa, Service Sr. Mary Ellen Francoeur says her goal is to love in a selfless way.

Last year, Pope Francis issued a decree revising the rules for the traditional foot-washing ritual on Holy Thursday, saying the rite should no longer be limited to men and boys but also include women and girls. A rash of headlines was received with mixed reactions by the Catholic community across the globe. While some individual priests in Kenya long ago adapted the ritual of foot washing to women, others adamantly cling to tradition.

When Sr. Madeleine Miller tried to substitute teach two years ago at Norfolk Public Schools, she was told they'd love to have her — but she couldn't wear her habit.

"Really?" the Missionary Benedictine sister replied. "Tell me more."

A 1919 state law backed by the Ku Klux Klan and other anti-Catholic groups barred teachers from "religious garb" in public schools. It had never been challenged.

But it didn't sit right with Miller, whose religious community in Norfolk encouraged her to try to change the law.

"I have given you a model to follow, so that as I have done for you, you should also do."

Notes from the Field - My favorite weekend during service with the Good Shepherd Sisters in Thailand involved dance. The Thai language does not always come easily to me, and having the opportunity to use dance, one of my favorite mediums of communication, gave me a new sense of freedom.

"Isn't it amazing that we are all made in God's image, and yet there is so much diversity among his people? Does God love his dark- or his light-skinned children less? The brave more than the timid? And does any of us know the mind of God so well that we can decide for him who is included, and who is excluded, from the circle of his love?"

The Dominicans at Lourdes Convent want to convert a corridor of bedrooms into a temporary housing unit for two women who are homeless and their young children. But their lawyer next-door neighbor has taken his objections to City Hall.

After being honored as a Woman of Courage, a Salesian sister from Syria said President Donald Trump's decision to bomb a Syrian air base is a step back from peace.

Sr. Stella Storch, a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa, learned firsthand in 2000 that Tanzanian orphans whose parents were decimated by AIDS are treated like second-class citizens, left vulnerable to trafficking. Fourteen years ago, she started a school now run by sisters in Tanzania that includes a variety of training programs to assist young people.