Joan O'Reilly is a Presentation Sister in the community's Northern Province of Ireland.
"Prayer isn't meant to change things; it is meant to change us."
GSR Today - As the world honors humanitarians today, August 19, the U.N.'s World Humanitarian Day, it's good to consider the debate that has been brewing for some time about whether the "aid world" has been a success or whether it is broken and needs to be fixed.
Demographic collapse is tough ground to build a case for hope on. Yet, that's exactly where Marcia Allen, CSJ, began her presidential address, entitled "Transformation – An Experiment in Hope," to the Assembly of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious (LCWR) last week. She didn't talk about diminishment or downsizing, as women religious are apt to do.
See for Yourself - It's back to school season once again and I have some advice for adults who take their lunch to work. You could choose a plain brown sack but its ability to protect everything securely is iffy.
Dr. Laura M. Leming, F.M.I. (Marianist) is an associate professor of sociology at the University of Dayton and serves on the Board of Trustees of St. Mary's University. Her areas of expertise include the sociology of religion, global religions, and social psychology.
GSR Today - Thank you, sisters. My first Leadership Conference of Women Religious assembly was awesome. Inspiring. Humbling. Gratifying. Inspiring. Heart-enriching. Heart-expanding. Joyful. Painful. Peaceful. Mindful. Spirit-filled. Delightful. Amazing.
The School Sisters of Notre Dame sponsored Judith Odero, now 34, to get a high school education when her family could afford to educate only their sons. Now, she's giving back with her own school. This is the story of how one scholarship beneficiary created a ripple effect reaching far beyond what the sisters could have imagined.
Sr. KC Young, a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa, works with inmates and ex-inmate through the Freedom Project in Seattle, an educational program that teaches mindfulness and nonviolent communication courses in five prisons throughout Washington. The project was initially founded to work solely in prisons, Young said, but "we realized that because this is transformational work and we're talking about connection, then we need to be connecting with those post-prison as well."
"We do not so much follow Christ as the life of Christ flows from us, as we become united to the Spirit of love, drawn ever more deeply into the mystery of God."