January 30 marked the 100th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Merton, known simply as Father Louis to his brother Trappists, but to the world as a young intellectual who heard the voice of God and followed it into cloistered monastic life. His memoir The Seven Storey Mountain, published in 1948, became a best seller. A spiritual “shot heard round the world,” it is a conversion story still resonating with seekers in our fast-paced age. By this and numerous other works Merton fathered the contemplative living and prayer movements of our time.

From A Nun's Life podcasts - What does it mean to say that discernment is a way of life?

"The ice lace gives way to ice melt and the disappearance into nothingness?"

Sr. Chantal Desmarais lives a life of contrasts. The Canadian Sister of Charity of Saint Mary spends a lot of time in prayer and contemplation. She also spends a lot of time playing hockey in a Sunday-night women’s league in Boucherville, northeast of Montreal.

GSR Today - The Selma anniversary was an impetus for reflection on the last 50 years of race relations in the United States. Congressman and civil rights leader John Lewis took to Twitter to publically reflect. In The New York Times, veteran journalist Gay Talese wrote about what’s changed since he was in Selma to cover the original march. Here at Global Sisters Report, we’re reflecting, too.

We Catholic women and men religious at the U.N. consider ourselves “gadflies” who remind the U.N. delegates to be faithful to the post-world war United Nations Charter, which was based on peace, justice and human rights. Our particular NGO (non-governmental organization), UNANIMA International, is a coalition of 19 different congregations of women religious – 20,000 of us, in over 80 countries. At the United Nations we join the representatives of over 100 Catholic congregations of men and women religious with a presence in more than 153 countries and hundreds of other faith-based NGOs from all over the world.

From NCR - A Vatican event Sunday saw a remarkably open and frank discussion among women about the limits on their participation in church structures in what may have been the first such public conversation ever to take place at the center of the Catholic hierarchy. Among the topics the women discussed at the event, held to mark International Women's Day: the need for the church to practice what it preaches about full equality between men and women, to include women in every level of decision-making, and to use inclusive language in its worship.

GSR Today - The big, big news this week is not what’s happening in Liberia, but what isn’t happening. There has not been a new case of Ebola reported in Liberia in 12 days.