"Living our vocation to be protectors of God's handiwork is essential to a life of virtue; it is not an optional or a secondary aspect of our Christian experience."

An oral history project at St. Catherine University is an unique first-person archive that documents, in an academically rigorous way, the intersection of housing insecurity and higher education, an experience far more common than it may seem. It was developed by Louise Edwards-Simpson, a history professor at the university, with the help of Sr. Amata Miller, a member of Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - Why would God give me two different vocations at the same time if they're not compatible?

Notes from the Field - After a short pause following the graduation of our seniors, San Francisco’s Immaculate Conception Academy is populated with students again this week as we begin our summer school classes. I am glad to see one student in particular because it means she is planning on returning next year.

School is out for the summer, so I have no way of bringing the class back to explore the Pope’s new encyclical, but I wonder, if the tables were turned, what grade my students would give Francis for his encyclical. I have a strong hunch they would be pleased with the pope’s “whole-making” or “re-membering, ” otherwise known in the encyclical as “integral ecology." It’s a clever extrapolation of Paul VI’s phrase “integral development,” which appeared in the 1967 encyclical, “On the Progress of Peoples.”

While some conservative politicians criticized Pope Francis for his encyclical on the environment, saying science should be left to scientists, Franciscan Sr. Ilia Delio has long lived at the intersection of science and spirituality. She praised the encyclical, calling it “remarkable.”

I was leading the ninth annual Women’s Wilderness Camping Retreat in the Santa Fe National Forest when the papal encyclical, “Laudato Si’, on Care for Our Common Home,”was released. While my hopes were for a document that could both inspire and call us to deeper action, my initial reading fills my poetic heart and activist soul with great gratitude. I am moved and pray a prayer of thanks for a call that encompasses “every person on the planet.”

Charity Sr. Mary Beth Moore, 67, is a leader of Pax Christi Long Island and a longtime supporter of Spanish-speaking immigrants. "They are a source of hope and challenge for me. Hope because despite so many difficulties, they are full of life and choose life. . . . They strive to create a happy family and a welcoming home. I simply must share in their hope and give my best back."

". . . all of us are linked by unseen bonds and together form a kind of universal family, a sublime communion which fills us with a sacred, affectionate and humble respect."