Having entered a religious community in 1966, I am definitely among the "old wine" comfortably settled into the biblically referenced old wineskins (Mathew 9:17), a well-worn garment that cannot be repaired by a patch of new cloth.To encounter new wine — a new form of religious community and service — old traditions with new structures — is an exciting event. And when I visited the Benincasa community in New York City recently that's what happened: I found a new wineskin, a new piece of cloth.

GSR Today - The Year of Consecrated Life has officially ended, having been celebrated in great diversity throughout of the world. The year gave me time to reflect on my own joy of being a sister and all the changes I have experienced.

"Imagine the world if we treated all people and relationships as Divine."

Sr. Cyrilla Chakkalakal is the fourth Indian to head the Franciscan Sisters of St. Mary of the Holy Angels, which was founded in France in 1871. The congregation is active in seven countries, but 350 of its 500 members are Indian. Chakkalakal has served as the congregation's India provincial for 12 years. She is also a member of the Satya Shodak (a group of female theologians and grassroots theologians) as well as a member of Indian Women Theologians Forum.

GSR Today - When I was a teenager, my mother would tell her friends that as long as I had enough peanut butter and ice cream to eat and classic films to watch, I would never leave the house. So I was thrilled to learn that our very own film critic, Sr. Rose Pacatte, is hosting a program on Turner Classic Movies this month.

"The real religion of the world comes from women much more than from men — from mothers most of all, who carry the key of our souls in their bosoms."

On Thursday after Ash Wednesday I received the results of my post-chemotherapy PET scan. The doctor poked her head in the exam room door and said, "I have good news for you!" She gave me a big hug, handed the report to me to review and sat herself down at the computer screen.

While it may come as a shock, humans are neither central nor supreme in the grand scheme of creation. Humans have a place among other beloved creatures of the same living God, and it’s more humble kinship than dominion. On Friday evening, St. Joseph Sr. Elizabeth Johnson, distinguished professor of theology at Fordham University, shared thoughts on the idea of such kinship with nature and described new ways to understand how humans fit into God’s work of creation during a well-attended talk at Mary House, a Catholic Worker house in New York’s East Village.

"Since all creation has its common source in God, a profound interdependence exists among all of creation. We are but a single part of a vast and interconnected community of creation in relationship to God and each part is valuable in itself. When we value the environment in this way we choose life for the environment and its creatures."