Contemplate This - These past weeks, a number of things have happened in the United States that signal to me we are entering a critical soul-searching time as a nation. Can this be the moment to pause as a nation and enter the "space" that seems to divide us and converse with each other in new ways? Can we ask what our common humanity is trying to call forth in us? Can we reclaim the best of who we are as Americans and who we want to be in the future?

European Union leaders and religious and academic leaders from around the world have criticized the Israeli government's decision to demolish a Jahalin Bedouin village of about 190 people and relocate its residents close to the al-Azaria Palestinian village, on the edge of a garbage dump.

"We have all known the long loneliness and we have learned that the only solution is love and that love comes with community."

When I am tired of arguing in defense of immigrants, of calling my legislators, of documenting what's happening via social media, I think of the refugees I have met in the temporary shelters. They are tired, too. 

"I object to the notion that anyone can be trafficked as if everything can be reduced to girls and young women being plucked from the streets. ... The larger dynamic is that trafficking tends to be at the far end of a continuum of violence and exploitation that already existed in many girls' lives."

"I was discovering that the secret to joy is not perfection or acclaim or upward mobility, but compassion and hiddenness and downward mobility."

St. Francis of Assisi had a vision of universal kinship. What he and the sultan really did was share their faith with each other. How does that challenge me as a Franciscan today?

The Life - "True formation happens when I am fully present to my daily reality. Then the word of God pierces my heart in the most unexpected ways, through the hands of his people." In the debut installment of the second year of GSR's feature The Life, our new panelists share what they've learned from work and life as a sister.

GSR Today - Welcome to the second year of our monthly series called The Life. A panel of 25 sisters will share their reflections on the unique, challenging lives of Catholic women religious. Meet our new panelists for the 2018-19 edition of The Life.

"If I am truly a person of encounter — open to the presence of Christ in the heart of the person in front of me, regardless of differences in opinion, political leanings, race, nationality, gender identity, and other categories — I cannot help but be changed by the experience."