GSR Today - We launched the online survey ahead of Global Sisters Report’s first anniversary in April, curious about what you liked and what you wanted us to do better or differently. Nearly 1,100 of you answered, representing 34 countries.

For the past three months, I have been happily preparing for the party of my life. This party will include a beautiful Mass, a locally-sourced dinner and a lively reception. The party of my life will celebrate my perpetual profession of vows with my community. Preparation for my final vows has been busy and enjoyable. But, not everything has been simple and easy.

"And suddenly there came from heaven a noise like a violent rushing wind, and it filled the whole house where they were sitting."

GSR Today - Faith leaders met with White House staff May 21 and presented a letter signed by nearly 1,500 faith leaders from across the country. Among those in the meeting were Sr. Patricia McDermott, president of the Sister of Mercy of the Americas, Lawrence Couch, Director of the National Advocacy Center of the Sisters of the Good Shepherd, and Fr. Timothy P. Kesicki, President of the Jesuit Conference of the United States and Canada.

"Be immersed in the dance of the trinity and all will be well."

Americans are changing jobs, if not careers, more frequently than ever before. Statisticians and sociologists argue about the significance of this trend, but the effects are observable. Where once people remained in one job, plying one trade or profession, living in one town for most of their lives, it is not uncommon to see rapid, frequent and fluid movement from one career to another, one coast to another, or from one life style to its complete opposite.

St. Joseph Sr. Margaret Nacke: "When I wake up at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., I always say a prayer for the women who are being trafficked and abused. This may be my angel nudging me to say the prayer and remember what is happening to some girls and women."

They may have waited 35 long years, but the many thousands who packed Savior of the World Plaza for the beatification of Óscar Romero took joy in the moment – and in the memory of the slain archbishop. Romero, who was martyred in 1980 as he said Mass in a hospital chapel near the start of El Salvador’s 12-year civil war, was beatified May 23. More than 250,000 people witnessed the ceremony, and spontaneous chants of “¡Viva Romero!” rang out through the crowd.

GSR Today - In its first year, Global Sisters Report has written about how sisters have tackled issues of financial sustainability, from raising goats in Uganda and selling traditional medicines in Vietnam to using public and private funds to build a new kind of community for farmworkers in Florida.

When I was studying the first sisters' communities in the United States, I became aware of the importance of economics in the success or failure of those sisterhoods. Sisters who came from Europe found a culture and economic situation very different from those in Europe. For centuries, convents and monasteries there were financed by wealthy, often noble, patrons, and by the sisters' dowries. In the U.S. there were few wealthy Catholics; most were immigrants on the bottom rungs of society. Few could afford dowries. Congregations that were going to survive had to adjust to the economic conditions in the new nation.