Nuns on the Bus Blog - Our mission in Cleveland was simply to offer free cups of lemonade to thirsty folks and start conversations. Lemonade is something you have on picnics, and who doesn't like a cup of lemonade on a hot day? Well, it turns out that many people don't.

GSR Today - It was a miracle on the level of the Red Sea parting. More than 100 kids in first to seventh grades were completely silent. For an hour. In church. I'd taught catechism to some of these kids, and I'd never seen them so rapt.

"When we assured them that we would pray with them and for them, we were drawing them into the circle of all those who sit at Jesus’ feet and seek help."

Nuns on the Bus Blog - A severe thunderstorm blasted the morning sky over Cleveland on Monday as we boarded the bus for downtown. Sr. Simone Campbell described the streaks of lightning and cracks of thunder as "the sky crying that a national convention is being held here."

In April 1986, three Servants of Mary Sisters founded the Northwest Catholic Counseling Center in Portland, Oregon, to help local parishes address unmet mental health needs.

The loud voices from the lobby of the integrative health care clinic in which I worked that fall were approaching high-decibel level.

Several of we providers wandered out into the hall from our offices, trying to figure out the source of the disturbance. My medical director caught sight of me and told me, "Get Jesus Christ out of the lobby before the cops get here!"

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

"Prayer has been key to crafting this sense of community among us so quickly."

Being an associate means to make a public commitment to the mission of a religious institute. This allows associates to "learn and live the spirituality of certain religious institutes while following their own vocation in the world," New Commentary on the Code of Canon Law says. But almost everything beyond that is up to the individual institute.

The spiritual desire to work with like-minded people is part of the reason that more and more people in North America are hearing the call to become associates. A study released July 18 by the Center for Applied Research in the Apostolate shows, that since 2000, the number of associates in the United States has grown nearly 40 percent, from nearly 25,500 to more than 35,000 today. What are the implications for religious life?