GSR Today - April 23 marks the official launch of the Global Sisters Report website, making this week fitting to look back on the journey we have been on. It’s no overstatement to say that there is nothing better than being constantly inspired by the people you’re writing about.

Sr. Teresita Abraham and the Presentation Sisters purchased land in September about 22 miles outside the town of Kaomain the Zambia’s southwestern province and are now in the process of building and landscaping the property as an eco-spiritual retreat and education center. Local volunteers are taking part in building the “Garden of Oneness” to be a place for quiet connection to the ecological side of spirituality, celebrating the close ties between traditional spiritual practices in Africa and nature.

I was so excited to read an interview in the spring issue of YES! magazine between Ralph Nader and Daniel McCarthy by Sarah van Gelder. When I finished I felt this is an example of exercising contemplative power. Although no spiritual practice was mentioned during the interview, what I read resonated with me. The interview became a container creating a safe space for Nader and McCarthy to explore their differences and their commonalities. These two men behaved in ways that invited something new to emerge.

Catholic women religious and observers reacted with notable – but muted – relief to Thursday’s news that Vatican oversight of their largest leadership group had ended two years early. The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has accepted a final report of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, officials said, ending the controversial investigation of the group that represents 80 percent of the roughly 50,000 women religious in the United States.

Commentary - We should all feel a sense of relief now that the whole sad Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith “doctrinal assessment” and oversight “mandate” of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious is history. There’s been reconciliation and this follows months of difficult and, as best we know, honest dialogue between the LCWR leadership and Seattle Archbishop Peter Sartain.

Our Catholic spirituality grows out of the deep roots of our shared Judeo-Christian tradition. As Cardinal Turkson so beautifully put it in a recent talk he gave in Ireland in anticipation of Pope Francis’s upcoming environmental encyclical: “To care for creation, to develop and live an integral ecology as the basis for development and peace in the world, is a fundamental Christian duty.” Moreover, as Scripture tells us: “The just person is one who therefore preserves communion with God, with neighbor, and with the land, and by doing so also makes peace!”

A controversial three-year program of Vatican oversight of the main leadership group of U.S. Catholic sisters has come to an end, with the sisters and the church’s doctrinal office announcing that the goal of the oversight “has been accomplished." The Vatican’s Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has accepted a final report of the doctrinal assessment of the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, “marking the conclusion” of the oversight, the Vatican announced Thursday.
• Click to read the Vatican press release on the end of the mandate for LCWR and the joint statement.

See for Yourself - Waiting in line is unproductive; all it does it secure a place, and in the case of getting your children into schools, that time could surely be better spent.

From a Nun's Life podcasts - How long does it take to discern a call to religious life, and what are some things to consider along the way?