Many people make New Year's resolutions, so perhaps we could start the new year by contemplating a mandala in which "no one and no thing is excommunicated" — which could become the basis for a new orientation toward 2018.

She entered religious life thinking skills she'd learned on the soccer field and volleyball, basketball and tennis courts would have to stay on the sidelines. Then came the boys and girls of St. Michael School in South Sioux City, Nebraska.

Recently, a Global Sisters Report headline read: "Reckoning: White sisters respond to their own racism, to one historian's call for justice." The photo under the headline was of a segregated investiture ceremony in 1947 of the first five black Sisters of St. Mary (now the Franciscan Sisters of Mary).

"Literally and metaphorically, voice is not located in the mouth or on the tongue where words are formed. Voice is deeper ... Where you find that meeting place, the home where heart and lungs gather, where breath meets blood, there you will find voice. When you find your way home, there you will find yourself, the unique gift that God has placed on this earth."

U.S. issues like immigration, gun control, racism and petroleum energy expansion are lately more prominent in people's view, especially since the 2016 presidential election, causing some people to notice for the first time that Catholic sisters are activists for social justice and equality. Here's how sisters are reacting to that increased awareness.

As I transition to a new ministry, I leave Ruah Community Services with gratitude for all it has taught me about working alongside people living in poverty and on the margins. The Western Australia nonprofit is a great model for us in religious life today.

"In the whiteout of winter snows, the purple of the cabbage reminds us life is there if we look. Can we take time to find it?"

I find the practice of nonviolent communication very healthy and effective because it gives each person a space and chance to be heard and understood. Any meaningful relationship depends on this. 

New York and Chicago - Catholics and Catholic reform groups were among the hundreds of thousands who turned out on the streets throughout the nation for the second annual Women's March.