Early last month I was giving a day presentation to religious congregations in San Rafael, California. The day focused on the power of contemplation as a transformative process, the transformation of consciousness and communal contemplation. The day ended with a section on exercising contemplative power. During the final discussion the question arose as to whether we could do something collectively to exercise contemplative power during this election.

Felician Sr. Celeste Goulet had never met a native person when she first felt called by the Holy Spirit to work with them following a 30-day retreat in 1973. Now she's a pastoral leader among the North Slavey people of Tulita, Northwest Territories, Canada, where she's been ministering since 1979.

GSR Today - I covered the annual assemblies of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious in 2014 in Nashville, Tennessee, and in 2015 in Houston. This year, I instead covered the Resource Center for Religious Institutes' national conference in southern California.

"Our life can also become a journey of learning, building, sharing, consoling and rejoicing, if only we keep our hearts open to the promptings of God."

Mother Theodore Guerin was canonized October 15, 2006, making her Indiana's only saint. Sisters of Providence of St. Mary-of-the-Woods began celebrating the 10th anniversary with a special Mass on her October 3 feast day. They planned to recall her arrival in Indiana with another service October 22.

Travels give us one the most precious things in life: time with ourselves. For me, each trip has been an invitation to self-discovery. As a Catholic religious woman in India, I have to make long and short trips, mostly by train, to the length and breadth of this vast country.

"The golden moments in the stream of life rush past us and we see nothing but sand; the angels come to visit us, and we only know them when they are gone."

This year, the annual SOA Watch protest took place at the border instead of at the school the group has protested for the last 27 years. The group still aims to draw attention to what used to be called the School of the Americas, but the 2016 gathering also focused on increased militarization of the border. "Different issue, but same shame," one protestor said.