Millions of prisoners worldwide are isolated from home, loved ones and society. As a volunteer for Prison Ministry India, I work with others to help prisoners cope with isolation from home and society.
In the company of each other, these women who escaped from unspeakable indignities in their native lands come together at Mary's House to voice their fears and concerns and to learn how to persevere and prosper.
I am elated that Pope Francis has proclaimed a year for St. Joseph. I have a special devotion to St. Joseph because he reminds me of my father, who was a steady, faithful presence in our family. Joseph has that same aura.
Sr. Regina Kabayama, a School Sister of Notre Dame, was born in Osaka in 1931. I am filled with awe how her spirit was nurtured with a diversity of experiences and how her faithful Catholic family, strengthened through persecution, blessed her with resilience and commitment.
Every year in the Archdiocese of Ho Chi Minh City in Vietnam, the archdiocese's Caritas Department holds a Christmas Day festival for children who are in the care of sisters from various congregations.
Contemplate This - We are being asked to imagine ourselves joining hands and becoming a circle around our planet and through space and time. Conscious of who we are at our best, we take part in a mutual exchange of wisdom and protection.
COVID-19 is teensy particles that go all over and spread, just like glitter. An anonymous description I read is this: "Picture us around a table, making individual crafts. One of us is using glitter. How many projects have glitter?" (They all do, since glitter spreads. Everywhere.)
Horizons - 2020 certainly has been a year like none other in our lifetimes. "Unprecedented" is the word that has been used countless times, so much so that I can barely stand to hear reporters say it. And yet, it is actually the perfect word.
Being in the presence of transgender people made something shift inside me — from fear and avoidance to a rehumanizing of my attitudes, explained in three words: revaluing, resurfacing and refinding.
In the St. Alphonsa youth group for young women at our parish in Karumandapam, I serve as animator, trying to guide them and be a friend and empowering them to be the "now of God," as Pope Francis called young people at World Youth Day last year.
I'm not talking about "big stuff" or life-changing decisions — those seem obvious for responding out of faith and prayer and discernment. I'm talking about the everyday stuff, the routine, the automatic.
From 1982 until 2020, sisters, singers and musicians accompanied people who came to Taizé prayer to find peace, solace and God's presence at the convent chapel. Now, somehow, COVID-19 has transformed and enhanced our prayer.
This sacred season of waiting and expectation is especially poignant now as our world holds its collective breath wondering if joy is even possible amid pandemic pain.
Horizons - Embarking on Advent this year, songs and reflections tug me along toward the season's idyllic waiting. But I am tired of waiting. And some people have been waiting for way too long.
There are no COVID-19 cases in the Cook Islands as of Dec. 9, but the global pandemic has had great economic, social, cultural, mental and environmental impact on us here, with both positive and negative results.
Jubilee is a time to return to the source of life, God when we wander away from our real home (forgetting that we can never survive, away from the source of everything). I realized in my isolation, without God, to whom else can I go?
For many women and girls in our country, the war zone is not the battlefield — their own homes are, and the war is orchestrated by their own partners or people who are supposed to protect them.
I've recently retired and developed a part-time writing ministry. I often get asked, "What are you doing these days?" What I'm doing is learning how to live life in a "Wait for it; watch for it; trust it" mode.
There are many good people today who possess an agnostic consciousness. They deserve to hear the good news about what God is doing in and through the significant spiritual movements of our time.
