Sr. Philomena Pichhappilly, a member of the Sisters of St. Joseph of Chambery, left the comforts of a convent to live in a slum 10 years ago. She arrived at this corner of the central Indian city of Nagpur when it had no proper roads, water or electricity. People lived in tin-roofed huts with walls made of sheets, clothes and other materials. A lot has changed since then.

In the Central Highlands, growing bananas is the main source of income for some of Vietnam's ethnic minorities. The Saint Paul de Chartres Sisters have run a bananas-for-rice trading program for more than 20 years, providing basic foods to the struggling farmers who can't get adequate payments from typical buyers.

"Maybe we, people of faith, have not done a very good job demonstrating the interconnectedness of all life and the importance of interdependence."

Education is the undergirding foundation for all of the U.N.s Sustainable Development Goals, and to achieve that kind of "civic learning" involves advancing a social justice approach. Catholic sisters have a role to play in this.

"Blessed are you when they insult you and persecute you and utter every kind of evil against you falsely because of me."

In 1987, Mercy Sr. Gerrie Naughton went door-to-door in her new town in Las Milpas, Texas, meeting families to get a sense of the community's needs. Few people in the town of 12,000 spoke English, and a majority of the families lived off a yearly income of $7,000. They had no fire department, public lighting, paved streets, drainage system, clinic, or public transportation. She would not do for the community what the community could do for itself, so in 1989, Naughton founded ARISE with five immigrant women all eager to change their lives for the better. The grassroots network now serves hundreds of members in four areas around Pharr: Las Milpas, Muniz, Hargill, and South Tower.  

GSR Today - I knew that I was coming to Ethiopia during the Ethiopian Orthodox Christian Holy Week, but I figured, since I was working for a Catholic website and planning to interview Catholic sisters, it wouldn't be a problem to come then — which only goes to illustrate how little I understood about Ethiopia.

When we enter this time of our lives in which we might feel regrets, we somehow forget the beauty, the joy, the happiness that have been ours. In the growing awareness that we aren't all we've hoped to be, we sometimes can forget the beauty of who we actually have become. Only God's mercy can teach us to weave together the dark and light threads of our days. Only both of these can create the beautiful tapestry of our life as God has meant it to be.

See for Yourself - Not too many years ago I accepted an invitation from Bombay colleagues to attend the public portion of a weekend event featuring a Swami.