As I get settled in a new ministry in a new town with a new set of people, there is a whole new set of opportunities to practice taking my hand off the plow — letting go of what isn't mine.

After five years serving 10 U.S. dioceses with burgeoning Latino populations, 36 sisters have graduated from the U.S.-Latin American Sisters Exchange Program. They're returning home with Boston College degrees, English skills, and pastoral experience. And for those U.S. dioceses, the sisters leave behind ministries they have built and local leaders they have trained to keep those ministries sustainable.

Servants of the Blessed Sacrament sisters founded the Eucharistic Adoration Association in 2005 at their motherhouse based in Bien Hoa City. What began with nine people now has 8,000 members throughout Vietnam. Sr. Maria Nguyen Thi Tuyet Lan said the association aims to help promote devotion to the Eucharist, the "great mystery of faith," to live by it and to bear witness to it.

The lack of women members of the religious congregation had drawn special scrutiny in recent years, as Vatican statistics estimate that there are about four times as many women in Catholic religious orders compared to men. Francis' appointments for the religious congregation, which is formally named the Congregation for Institutes of Consecrated Life and Societies of Apostolic Life, were announced July 8.

If we could only remember who we are -- made in the likeness of God! And we are called to represent God wherever we may be: in our family, in class and even in the streets.

Mercy Sr. Mary Maurita Sengelaub, a nurse who entered religious life and eventually led what is now called the Catholic Health Association of the United States, died July 6 at age 101.

Orders of women and men religious received, collectively, $28 million in financial help from the National Religious Retirement Office, the umbrella group that coordinates the annual Retirement Fund for Religious campaign in parishes and dioceses nationwide.

The $28 million distribution, announced July 8, took place in June. It totals more than the amount raised in last year's collection, which was $27.7 million. The distribution also is $3 million more than last year's disbursement of $25 million.

I cherish the gift religious life has been to me and so many others, a gift kept alive in this sometimes crazy and broken institution we call "church." But as I reflect on identifying myself as Catholic, the words often catch in my throat.

Being assigned to a hill tribe in Mae Jam, Chiang Mai, a northern area of Thailand, changed the life of Sr. Marie Agnes Buasap, a Sister of St. Paul de Chartres. Her congregation has been in Thailand for 120 years and has 22 schools for students from kindergarten to high school.