"How we choose to respond to this moment will decide the future of ministerial religious life. We don't have much time. Like Jesus, we are challenged to be filled with a divine recklessness. We are too careful. Jesus was reckless in his love. Are we ready for that?"

For me, the "future" question doesn't press as heavily on my heart as does the question, "Who are we called to be as women religious in the 21st century?" We must continue to consciously enter that upper room, that space of sacred patient waiting, and pray for the coming of the Spirit in our time.

Notes from the Field - As I endure my long daily commute to the juvenile justice facility, I have a lot of time to think. I have time to really ponder and digest the things going on in my life and in my mind thanks to those three hours or so; I discover and observe new things every day, and I have become more mindful about my being and my surroundings.

"The future of religious life will be decided on the peripheries where Christ is in agony," said Sr. Mary Sujita in a plenary address to a triennial meeting of the UISG. "It will not be decided on the number of sisters we have. Let us be clear on this."

Mercy Associate Ramona Casas was 12 years old when she crossed the border in the trunk of a car, buried in clothing as her uncle's friends drove her from Mexico to the Rio Grande Valley. Today, she is a community organizer and advocacy networker, and she directs the Border Witness Program,

"Charism is not a property. It is not a possession. It is not transferrable. It is not transmittable. And it is not controllable."

The global umbrella group for the leaders of the world's Catholic women religious has created a new advisory council of five female canon lawyers to offer expertise on church law to sisters' communities worldwide.

The leaders of the world's communities of Catholic women religious were warned against accepting an "entitlement creep" that numbs them from confronting poverty and environmental destruction, at the opening session of a triennial gathering here. 

"In the world you will have trouble, but take courage, I have conquered the world."