A city in mourning – a nation in shock. I, too, grieve for the loss of nine lives at historic Emanuel A.M.E. church in Charleston. I, too, hurt for their families and friends. It’s not a passing sympathetic emotion. As a black American now 89 years old, I grew up in the pre-Civil Rights South. Despite it all, as I grieve over the hate-filled slaughter on June 17 in Charleston, the greatest pain I feel is for young Dylann Roof. He was not born a racist; nor with a gun in his hand; nor feeling that his life was threatened or his people’s lives diminished by the existence of other ethnic groups.

Three Stats and a Map - After a gunman with ties to a white supremacy group opened fire on a black church in Charleston, S.C., June 17, it didn’t take long for people to point out that the attack occurred in a state where the Confederate flag still flies on government property. Before long, even former proponents of the flag like South Carolina State Sen. Paul Thurmond were calling for its removal.

Notes from the Field - In my initial explorations of San Francisco after arriving here in August, one of the first unfamiliar things that struck me was the large and ubiquitous presence of the city’s homeless population.

“Human beings, while capable of the worst, are also capable of rising above themselves, choosing again what is good, and making a new start, despite their mental and social conditioning.”

Moira McQueen, a theology professor and a fan of St. Thomas Aquinas, views her appointment into a prestigious Catholic commission as cumulative of her faith and decisions made throughout her life. “I find that it is only possible to be humble before his incredible gifts of reasoning, insight and faith,” said McQueen of the 13th-century theologian and philosopher.

GSR Today - I didn’t grow up in the same world as my mother and grandmother. I’ve been thinking about that a lot in these last two weeks since my grandmother died.

Because the law of belief (lex credendi) is the law of life (lex vivendi), there is a deep connection between ancient religious prayers, beliefs and rituals at the heart of our ecological disconnectedness. What we profess in faith, the language used to express those beliefs, and the structure of worship that ritualizes those beliefs, are all wired into our religious DNA. We are programmed for heaven above not an earth in evolution; God up above not God up ahead.

Jesus often has a crowd around him interested in what he is saying and doing. As we read the Gospels, we become like the crowds who follow Jesus, and we are deeply affected by observing and hearing his words. In this Gospel account, the crowd is walking with Jesus on his way to heal the daughter of Jarius. Suddenly Jesus says he is aware of power leaving him.

She's in her 30s ‒ only 1 percent of women religious are. And she's an elementary school teacher. Fewer than 2,000 women religious ‒ 2 percent of all sisters ‒ teach in U.S. Catholic grade schools. Yet she said she's joyfully where she needs to be and is not discouraged by the few number women choosing religious life. "I wouldn't necessarily say there's a drop in vocations as much as there is a drop in the 'yes' ‒ you know, the response to the call," she told Catholic News Service during a recent interview at St. Peter Indian Mission School in Bapchule. "I think God is calling and calling and calling."