When Sr. Magi Maria quit a comfortable teaching job to plunge into social work, neither she nor her congregation had any idea what lay ahead. A quarter century later, more than 50,000 residents of 105 drought-prone villages in the central Indian state of Madhya Pradesh thank the Congregation of Mother Carmel nun for taking that "leap into the dark." Her intervention has helped them break free of poverty, unemployment, malnutrition, illiteracy and enslavement.

"Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink?"

From A Nun's Life podcasts - What are some ways that nuns use social media to help people? Can a tweet offer "something to hang on to?" In this Random Nun Clip, we talk with Benedictine Sr. Christine Ereiser, the "Twittering Nun," about providing meaningful content in 140 characters or less.

Feb. 15, Pope Francis visits Chiapas, Mexico, a state where one-fourth of the population is Protestant or evangelical. Catholic sisters there hope the pope's visit will inspire people and reverse the trend as Francis is expected to address issues of inequality, indigenous rights and migration. Click here to follow all of National Catholic Reporter's coverage of the pope's visit to Mexico.

"Every journey changes us. Even after we've returned to the familiar external landscapes of our lives, our interior landscapes have been reshaped and do not go neatly back to the way they were."

I grew up, like most Catholics, thinking that Lent was a gloomy season when we stopped singing "Alleluia!" and eating candy because we had to be sorry for our sins for 40 days. The only good part about Lent was that I just might get to go to the parish fish fry on Friday evening and run around with my grade school buddies. Sadly, I'm not sure that my understanding of Lent matured much more than that until recent years.

See for Yourself - Recently a friend told me about the death of a classmate who was living four states away. I was shocked to hear of the death, so the friend sent me to the e-obituary on a newspaper's website.

"We too can be hands, arms and hearts which help God to perform his miracles, so often hidden."

The Daughters of Charity of St. Vincent de Paul, internationally known for their work defending the rights of the poor, especially women and children in rural areas, started their services in Vietnam in 1928 and now have more than 600 nuns in service. Sr. Pascale Le Thi Triu is part of a bureau where lay professionals in the fields of social work, special education, health care, counseling, law, architecture, environment and finance offer to work with the sisters in more than 50 centers located mostly in remote and mountain regions.