Being engaged with people on the margins and trying to view life from their perspective, I am often stunned at their simple faith and their contentment in life with the little they possess. At times I begin to wonder how I am different in this big city. What is it that makes my life a tangible presence, giving meaning to the way of life I was called to and the generosity with which I was supported by my family in my response? Along this journey of life, I have known one thing: Once we are open to life, so many unexpected things happen.

Three Stats and a Map - According to the U.S. Census, 41.7 million people living here self-identify as African-American – a term that is deceptively simple. For starters, Africa is a vast and diverse continent.

"The divine life is essentially creative and actualizes itself in inexhaustible abundance."

Members of the Missionaries of Charity had to spend more than two hours waiting at police headquarters for clearance before they could deliver food, blankets and other promised relief to earthquake victims in a remote mountainous area of Nepal. The group of six sisters, eight brothers and about six volunteers had asked for police accompaniment on their May 16 mission because, on an earlier trip, they had been accosted by looters while carrying aid to people trapped in the mountains overlooking Kathmandu Valley.

After the Leadership Conference of Women Religious broke its silence Friday regarding the end of the controversial Vatican oversight of the group, some sisters also still have lingering questions. For the National Coalition of American Nuns, a progressive 300-member grassroots organization focused on church and social justice issues, the major question is this: At what price has this resolution been achieved?

"They do not belong to the world any more than I belong to the world."

GSR Today - So, in case you missed it, the end of last week was pretty busy at Global Sisters Report. On Friday (at 4:30 in the morning Kansas City time, no less) the Leadership Conference of Women Religious released its first statement about the end of the Vatican’s oversight of the conference last month.

I received an email request for volunteers on the Friday afternoon before Mother’s Day from Ruben Garcia, director of Annunciation House for immigrants and refugees in El Paso, Texas. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) had detained 40-some mothers and fathers with children whom they would be processing for release on Sunday, May 10. They contacted Ruben to ask if they could bring them to Nazareth. Ever since last summer a vacant section of the Sisters of Loretto Nazareth Hall nursing home has provided temporary shelter to a small but steady number of refugees, mostly from Central America and certain parts of Mexico hit hard by drug cartel violence.

See for Yourself - The other day I was engaged in an exuberant conversation with a friend. Our topic was how we preserved our shoes. It might as well have been about how a bill becomes a law, as exciting as that probably sounds. She took a relatively brief approach, saying things like she isn't hard on shoes but instead her shoes last forever. 

More than two decades ago, Van Kieu ethnic minority villagers in the Dakrong District of Quang Tri Province, central Vietnam, traditionally buried babies alive together with their dead mothers as they believed the babies could be breastfed in the afterlife. They observed the custom of leaving dead bodies in forests at sunset and then running home for fear that the souls of the dead would follow them and cause more suffering. They also followed the practice of marriage between close kin as “connecting the family line.” Now they have abandoned these outdated customs, thanks to Sr. Josephine Anna Tran Thi Hien of the Lovers of the Holy Cross of Hue, who has saved more than 100 children from these practices.