"I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy."

Since launching the Global Sisters Report Africa:Connect discussion group last month on the WhatsApp platform, we've reached almost 40 sisters in six countries. Every week, we discuss an article from Global Sisters Report or a question. Ahead of Pope Francis' first trip to Africa Nov. 25-30, the sisters shared their hopes and dreams for the visit.

GSR Today - Thanksgiving is just around the corner, and the feast of Mary being presented in the Temple is celebrated November 21, within the same week. Of course the feast is special to the Sisters of the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, but it is a feast that has iconic implications for all of us.

See for Yourself - It's happened three times in as many days. Maybe I hang around with the wrong people, but everywhere I turn I get the same thing.

With two cycles of chemotherapy under my belt I am no longer wondering how this experience will play out. The post-chemo side effects hang on a few days longer than the last time I went through this and are harder on my system. As a physician and a veteran of cancer treatment, I am less docile, more directive with my healthcare providers. But the view from the other end of the stethoscope or the needle is essentially a patient's perspective and the root of that word is "suffer."

"Season of harvest. Season of thanksgiving. We are blessed indeed!

Before social media existed, I had a choice about when and how to access my various newsfeeds. But with social media, all of our newsfeeds — personal, professional, local and global — are intertwined. So what do we do when our newsfeeds feel overwhelming because of too much violence and grief? How do we go to our favorite social network to connect with friends and, in the process, encounter a cute baby animal video or, conversely, a heartbreaking photo of recent violence?

Prof. Sr. Patricia Lanigan teaches in Kenya at the Institute of Social Ministry at Tangaza College, using an academic approach to community-driven development

More than 500 women religious from across the United States and Canada gathered last weekend in St. Louis, Missouri, for the Council of Major Superiors of Women Religious' symposium on religious life, an event inspired by the Year of Consecrated Life and Pope Francis' 2014 call for men and women religious to "wake up the world."