Poet Theodore Roethke calls worms the "intrepid scholars of the soil." For hundreds of millions of years they've sculpted Earth's hostile rock into forest floors and garden beds — laid out welcome mats with menus for strangers who would never breathe, or eat, or see, or think without them. 

As a volunteer observer for the U.S. National Weather Service, Benedictine Sr. Marva Hoeckelman records temperatures each day at South Dakota's Mother of God Monastery. The work is simple but profound for Hoeckelman, who also writes nature poetry.

It was during this time of deep grief (at age 24) that I first encountered St. Angela Merici. What did impress me was that Angela encountered terrible grief early in life. By the time she was 15, both her parents had died. A few years later, her beloved sister also died. How on Earth could Angela still trust God in the midst of so much loss? 

GSR Staff - Despite having experience reporting on Latin America and the ways sisters tend to migrants, on this night, I was like any other American oblivious to the realities of a mass migration, standing amid a never-ending stream of tired faces all coming from the same direction.

Ixtepec, Mexico - To the Guardian Angel sisters who run it, the Albergue Hermanos en el Camino migrant shelter is more than a center for resources or a bed for the night. It's an opportunity to prevent trafficking and identify those who may have experienced it. And though, with the threat of gangs, the sisters' lives can "truly be in danger ... we will share our space, and we will live out our mission."

Mercy Sr. Lillian Murphy, a longtime champion of affordable housing in the United States, is being remembered both for her leadership of Mercy Housing Inc. and her passionate belief that housing is a human right and a matter of justice.

Horizons - I'm scrolling through Facebook when my eyes land on a fascinating headline: "Behold, the Millennial Nuns." I click, slightly apprehensive — because I am a millennial nun. What will the author have to say about us, apparently a breed to behold?

About 20 sisters from 16 congregations in the San Antonio Archdiocese are serving as part of an interfaith collaboration to minister to the surge of immigrants who are seeking safety in the United States. Sisters are building relationships with both the border crossers that they assist as well as those in authority.

An elderly religious sister who worked for many years at the Domus Sanctae Marthae, the papal residence, was at her congregation's house recovering from surgery when she received an unexpected visit from Pope Francis.