"You shall love the Lord, your God, with all your heart, with all your being, with all your strength, and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself."

It's hard to believe that after months of campaign ads, primary battles, debates, and commentary, Election Day is still a month away. Each day brings with it a new batch of headlines, claims of he said this, and she did that. At the end of the day, it can be exhausting. And yet, with 31 days until November 8, we are each called to consider this election cycle in terms of what it means to answer the baptismal call as a citizen and person of faith.

"As we evolve slowly toward adulthood as a species, we need to move from the imagined independence of our adolescence to a realization of our interdependence with all other species. It is a move from stewardship to membership in an Earth community where the divine is not an absentee landlord but an immanent and intimate presence in every being."

Haiti is again digging out from a disaster, which has postponed national elections. Hurricane Matthew caused massive flooding this week in the southwest part of the country, prompting Mourad Wahba, the United Nations' representative in Haiti, to say that the destruction was the "largest humanitarian event" since the country's devastating 2010 earthquake.

Restorative justice aims to restore the relationship between offenders and the victims of crime, often in a one-on-one setting. This practice can help heal both parties and the community. A number of programs in Northern California have found success in using this practice to counteract the U.S. justice system's focus on punishment.

What does it mean to live the Gospel? If I'm called to live the Gospel, how do I do it? Women, like the recently canonized Teresa of Calcutta, are shining beacons of this Gospel-centered life for me. While in the process of searching for inspiration and courage to lead a humble life in service of the Gospel, I found inspiration in the history of my own community.

"I am the kind of person who easily gets defeated by life's problems. But when I started working, I saw that other people have bigger problems than me but they don't give up. From them I get the strength to face my problems."

Catholic sisters are demanding the Vietnamese government address their petitions according to legal procedure regarding what they say is an illegal use of their land.

The Feast of St. Francis is a good time to remember that the words we choose to describe life on our planet matter.