Author and activist Terry Tempest Williams has written, “Much of our world now is a fabrication, a fiction, a manufactured and manipulated time-lapsed piece of film making where a rose no longer unfolds, but bursts. Speed is the buzz, the blur, the drug. Life out of focus becomes a way of seeing.” Her solution: “Go underground like a seed so that something new may come forth.” Twelve women ranging in age from 52 to 83, myself included and in the 60s cohort of the group, decided to take Williams up on her challenge.

NCR Preview - The discussions at the ongoing Synod of Bishops have shown a clear difference in mindsets between the prelates considering issues of family life and ordinary Catholics looking to the gathering in hopes for changes in church pastoral practice, one of the non-voting participants in the event has said. U.S. Sacred Heart of Mary Sr. Maureen Kelleher said there is a clear cultural divide between bishops' and laypersons' points of view.

"Those who go before us light our way. We remember them with each step we take."

GSR Today - A documentary on the work of an Irish missionary sister supporting people with HIV/AIDS has been nominated for the Kenyan version of the Academy Awards. "Nurtured with Love" details the work at the Love and Hope Centre in Nakuru, Kenya, run by the Franciscan Missionary Sisters for Africa.

In the history of the United States, human trafficking runs long, pre-dating the Declaration of Independence. As efforts to end slavery, sexual exploitation and other forms of abuse have evolved, Catholic sisters were among the very first faith-based groups to take on human trafficking, specifically of women for sex, in modern times. Global Sisters Report looks specifically at the efforts of Benedictines in South Dakota, whose education and other ministry centers on the I-29 corridor and the particular vulnerability of Native American young women living there. Their work mirrors that of many other sisters' communities and coalitions.

For the last four years, Comboni Missionary Sr. Ilaria Buonriposi has served as the director of Latino outreach for Catholic Mobilizing Network, a non-profit group that, in 2009, sprung out of St. Joseph Sr. Helen Prejean’s anti-death penalty ministries. The Italian-born Buonriposi learned Spanish while earning her degree in social work from the Universidad Pontifica Comillas in Madrid; she then spent 17 years doing social work ministries in Peru and Colombia. In her current position, Buonriposi helps educate Latino and Hispanic communities in the U.S. about church teachings on the death penalty.

“To secure this divine peace for ourselves and procure its blessings for others in the midst of the sin, turmoil and restless anxiety of this modern world is the object of your institute.”

Horizons - Much of our life-long religious formation ingrains in us that Christians are called to be countercultural, and we have a lot of work to do in order to evangelize the culture like Pope Francis invites. But, if we are disciples of Jesus Christ, then our countercultural actions must be guided by how he sent us into the world to witness and proclaim the Gospel.

"Who writes a biography about a nun? Can you think of anything duller?" Benedictine Sr. Joan Chittister posed these questions at an Oct. 6 event marking the publication of the new biography Joan Chittister: Her Journey from Certainty to Faith (Orbis Books). Those in attendance at the book launch at Boston's Pucker Gallery could not have disagreed with Chittister more.

"The glory yet to be revealed comes in the dying."