The trickle-down theory, or more recently known as trickle-down economics, is essentially that a lot of money at the top will eventually mean a lot of money for the people at the bottom of the economic scale. This theory has also been applied to other areas of inequality, such as access to education or jobs. But the theory doesn't hold up. From my 24 years of ministering in rural Mississippi, I sure haven't seen any trickle down. The gap between the haves and the have-nots is a given in this state: One that is embedded in its very culture.

While there was a time when more than half of Catholic children went to Catholic schools, that is far from true today. And within the largest and fastest-growing Catholic school-aged population — Latinos — barely 3 percent are enrolled in such schools. New strategies are slowly changing that fact.

“Every conscious action no matter how miniscule connects energetically with every other action, and the quality and quantity of awakened consciousness increases incrementally on our planet.”

"It is in the shelter of each other that the people live," An old Irish proverb teaches. Life, it seems, begins and ends in encounter. Together we support one another. We create something new; we make space. And there, within ourselves and within the world, life is sheltered and sustained. Between you and me there is created the perfect balance of resistance and reassurance — trust rooted in and returning to love — a balance better known as relationship.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Will God listen to my prayers more if I wear a chapel veil? A question from a "Prayer Pro Tips" webinar.

A funeral Mass was celebrated Jan. 12 at Sacred Heart Chapel at St. Joseph's Convent in Brentwood for Sr. John Raymond McGann, the twin sister of the late Bishop John R. McGann of Rockville Centre. The Sister of St. Joseph, a former general superior of her religious order in Brentwood, died Jan. 6 at the convent, which is her congregation's motherhouse on Long Island. She was 91 and had been a religious sister for 68 years.

"Can you see the way the world is headed? Can you stop the tides that seek to destroy? Can you and I see how we play a part and make a change for the sake of earth our home?"

Terrorism in Paris, flooding in Bangladesh, Ebola in Africa, family violence everywhere. The suffering in our world is of such magnitude that each of us must find a way of dealing with it or accommodating it within our meaning-making scheme. Some people look for someone to blame and often that someone is God.

See for Yourself - The month of January is either the coldest month of the year, if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, or it can be the warmest month of the year, if you live in the Southern Hemisphere. For northerners, this is our midpoint of the winter season, but for those in the southern globe this month is the midpoint of the summer season.