A women's group in the Paco area of Metro Manila participated in a Good Shepherd development project this past year. As I journey with them, they are witnesses to me that God is our only refuge and hope.
Hearts need healing, not just after physical cardiac events. We've all been there, feeling not quite right on an emotional, psychological, mental, physical or spiritual level.
During a visit to a prison in Peru, Sr. Begoña Costillo discovered how the Gospel came to life behind bars and offered hope and liberation to those who seek conversion, healing and redemption.
Ecological consciousness is a journey that happens from the inside out. Something must change in what people believe about themselves and their relationship to others and the planet.
May we each have graced moments on whatever stoop we choose — to listen to the sidewalk prophets, to ponder the things of life and to remember who we are and what we stand for.
The end of a year and the beginning of a new one naturally leads to self-reflection, with a concurrent desire to improve one's life. I'll admit this is true in my own life.
Another year begins. Time for New Year's resolutions. Can we remember what last year's good intentions were? Maybe yes, and we are delighted. Maybe no, and those intentions are consigned to a museum, so to speak.
We do not need to frantically figure out the future of religious life or even ensure that it continues — that is God’s work. May we wisely participate in this unfolding.
This Advent and Christmas season, take some time to ponder both the gifts of the Incarnation and the second coming through the insights and words of our ancestors in faith.
Christmas is a call, an invitation and a challenge to interior conversion, communal transformation and external revitalization, letting go, to let emerge and to re-create.
Horizons - Can we dream of a renewed humanity? In this time of Advent, we are invited to explore our inner light and cleanse our gaze, welcoming both light and shadow with generosity.
We are called to straighten perverse attitudes and inadequate behavioral patterns of communication, as well as straighten the warped or broken relationships in our families, communities, presbyteries and society.
I think of the dormant seeds in our souls during this Advent and how, like the desert seeds, new growth comes with prayer and God showering us with his love and blessings.
Sometimes it is better to give and sometimes it is just as appropriate to receive. As we make our way through life's sometimes rocky roads, we learn to give generously and to receive with gratitude.
"When I was born in Mexico, my father was already beyond the border," writes María Elena Méndez Ochoa. "The theme of migration resurfaced when I entered religious life."
Women religious must move from a stage of development marked by relative certainty to one of tentativeness and hope of a fundamental breakthrough. They need to accept "the new normal" of being in transition.