GSR Today - Measuring progress in a country such as Haiti with its myriad of challenges is risky, fraught with potential disappointment and few milestones. But my visit last fall with Sr. Janet Lehmann, director of the nursing program at University of Notre Dame Haiti's Jacmel campus, and some of the school's students pointed unequivocally to brighter prospects.

Visual essay - In the Volta Region of Ghana in west Africa, the Sisters of Mary Mother of the Church Congregation run a health care facility, the Mater Ecclesiae Clinic, and the Mater Ecclesiae School for young students in the area. Their convents include facilities for baking bread, meat pies and Communion wafers — which are distributed for Masses all over the country.

"The Eucharist is where we can move from the otherness to oneness. It is our identity. If we don't see our neighbors as the image of God, then we become aliens ourselves."

From Where I Stand - There was a time in life when I wanted things done and wanted them done now. I still want things done now but over the course of the years, I discovered that, at least where the church is concerned, I was looking for action in the wrong places. 

In Conversation - Listen to excerpts from Standup Sisters, a live annual storytelling show hosted during National Catholic Sisters Week.

The Daughters of St. Mary of Providence's Special Adult Religious Formation Program apostolate, better known as SPAR, operates in accordance with the Catholic Church's teaching that "all baptized persons with disabilities have a right to adequate catechesis and deserve the means to develop a relationship with God."

Horizons - Power pulsed through me as I stretched my wrists behind me to the arresting officer because I truly believed in the rightness of our cause.

See for Yourself - Effie definitely enjoyed sharing about her three cats, and I enjoyed hearing about them, so it was a pleasant time together. She continued: "And for sure I know that these cats practice different religions."

"God doesn’t love us only if we can change, but God loves us so much that we are able to change. Imagine taking that outrageous reality to heart and working from there!"