When I first joined the Xavier Community, I could not sit still. A recent college graduate, new to Kansas City and to my job at a local non-profit, I was eager to get involved in as many things as I could. Instead, I moved in with three Sisters of Charity and a few other young women and encountered stillness for the first time.

"We talk about three persons in one God because there's only one divine nature: what you have is one nature, individualized in a plurality of persons, and that makes them one because it is the one nature. If we are made in his image, then this whole notion of multiple races can't be. There's only one human race, one human nature. And, like God, it is individualized in a plurality of persons."

Thousands of young women in India have been helped by the National Domestic Workers Movement , a nongovernmental organization started in 1985 by Sr. Jeanne Devos, a Missionary Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary. Devos is from Belgium and has worked in India for the past 51 years.

Living singly instead of in community in Chicago, I've done my best to adjust and try to focus on the benefits rather than dwell on the deficits. Top among them is my view of Lake Michigan and my mornings spent contemplating it.

"In 2017, may we dedicate ourselves prayerfully and actively to banishing violence from our hearts, words and deeds, and to becoming nonviolent people and to building nonviolent communities that care for our common home. Nothing is impossible if we turn to God in payer. Everyone can be an artisan of peace."

"As brothers and sisters, therefore, all people are in relation with others, from whom they differ, but with whom they share the same origin, nature and dignity."

We Christians have just celebrated Christmas Day, an opportunity to celebrate the in-breaking into our wounded and divided world of Emmanuel, God-with-us, the Prince of Peace. The radical message of Christmas tends to get lost among the decorations, festivities and general commercialization of the holiday.

GSR Today - We ended up traveling and writing a lot in 2016, and you might have missed some of our favorite coverage. Here is a list of 10 noteworthy stories (and series) for you to revisit or even to read for the first time.

See for Yourself - In my family, we have a special holiday tradition that isn't about material things, except for the goats.