"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live," An old Irish proverb teaches. Life, it seems, begins and ends in encounter. Together we support one another. We create something new; we make space. And there, within ourselves and within the world, life is sheltered and sustained. Between you and me there is created the perfect balance of resistance and reassurance — trust rooted in and returning to love — a balance better known as relationship.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Will God listen to my prayers more if I wear a chapel veil? A question from a "Prayer Pro Tips" webinar.

A funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 12 at Sacred Heart Chapel at St. Joseph's Convent in Brentwood for Sr. John Raymond McGann, the twin sister of the late Bishop John R. McGann of Rockville Centre. The Sister of St. Joseph, a former general superior of her religious order in Brentwood, died Jan. 6 at the convent, which is her congregation's motherhouse on Long Island. She was 91 and had been a religious sister for 68 years.

"Can you see the way the world is headed? Can you stop the tides that seek to destroy? Can you and I see how we play a part and make a change for the sake of earth our home?"

Terrorism in Paris, flooding in Bangladesh, Ebola in Africa, family violence everywhere. The suffering in our world is of such magnitude that each of us must find a way of dealing with it or accommodating it within our meaning-making scheme. Some people look for someone to blame and often that someone is God.

See for Yourself - The month of January is either the coldest month of the year, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, or it can be the warmest month of the year, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. For northerners, this is our midpoint of the winter season, but for those in the southern globe this month is the midpoint of the summer season.

Sr. Violet Rodrigues teaches English at Holy Cross College in Dhaka, Bangladesh, one of several roles she has held as an educator, including serving as a teacher and headmistress in a village school in northeast Bangladesh. She grew up in the village of Noakhali, near Chittagong, Bangladesh's "second city." The former area coordinator for the Sisters of the Holy Cross has ties to the United States, having spent part of 2015 at the order's motherhouse at St. Mary's College in Notre Dame, Indiana.

"God is calling; he has never ceased to call. Young people are having difficulty hearing that call today because of the state of our culture — the noise that we surround ourselves with, the lack of prayer and the crisis of faith that sometimes is the case."

For 16 years, Loreto Sr. Ephigenia Gachiri has traveled across Kenya desperately trying to halt female genital mutilation. Though millions of women are still at risk for the ceremonial cutting, there are success stories. Mary Nasibo is one.
Related story - In rural Kenya, a path to adulthood without female genital mutilation

I am a Scrabble player — maybe even addicted to it! Playing Scrabble helps me cope with life. My usual partner is a musician who is also a mystic: this makes for a heady combination. It's a time when we don't have to be "nice" to each other: we can be competitors and just enjoy the game.