"A beam, a signal for safety; what in your heart guides the way?"

Every weekday morning before class begins, Laurie Quirk, chairwoman of the English Department at Georgetown Visitation Preparatory School, waits for students to show up to share a brief prayer service enriched by the words of St. Francis de Sales and Jane de Chantal. The weekday prayer service is just one way the school passes on the commonsense Salesian virtues to its 500 students, all girls. They, the alumnae and their families are entrusted to model the Visitation charism developed at a school founded in 1799, the oldest one for Catholic girls in the original 13 states.

GSR Today - It's hard to describe the atmosphere of events like the two-week meeting of the Commission on the Status of Women. They are by turns festive, challenging and exhausting; you cannot possibly take in every event, every forum, every panel discussion related to the challenges women face.

Bernie had been a vowed Franciscan sister for 40 years and seemed quite content and happy in her calling. I envied her remarkable inner peace and happiness with both her vocation and her Poor Clare sisters.

"Jesus was a teacher. All those who chose to follow him were invited to see things differently. To wake up to what is really there. To remove the blinders that keep us seeing through the worldviews and assumptions of an earlier stage of consciousness. To become aware of one's own biases and behaviors so as to enter into the process of transformation. To enter into the process of putting on the mind of Christ."

"Some women from our group, however, have astounded us: they were at the tomb early in the morning and did not find his body; they came back and reported that they had indeed seen a vision of angels who announced that he was alive."

See for Yourself - How did Easter roll around so quickly? Wasn't it just Christmas? Why, yes, it was — but months ago now.

"The Stations reassure me. If Jesus himself fell not once, not twice, but three times under his great and terrible burden, I don't think we should beat ourselves up too much when we crumble at times under ours."

The first conference on women religious to be held at the University of Notre Dame's Kylemore Abbey Global Centre in Ireland since it opened two years ago focused on the role of women religious in migrant education. On March 15 and 16, sisters working on the front lines in migrant education in places like Italy, the Philippines, Latin America and Nigeria exchanged information and testimonies with scholars who document sisters' work.

Contemplate This - Jesus was a teacher. All those who chose to follow him were invited to see things differently. To wake up to what is really there. For me, that is the invitation to contemplation. Holy Week is a solemn time to take time. I'd invite you to make sitting in contemplation a priority during these days leading up to and following Easter.