The word benevolent comes from the Latin, bene + velle, meaning to wish well. Benevolent gazing is a silent prayer done with the eyes. It means to look with love wherever you look – at morning rain washing your windows, at the hooded eyes of the terrorist and his captives on the news, at the sun rising like ribbons over your head and theirs.

In the 36-year war in Guatemala that ended with a peace treaty in 1996, some 200,000 persons died or disappeared, most of them unarmed indigenous Maya, at the hands of the army. In the midst of the mayhem, the Poor Clares answered a call from the bishop of the hard-hit province of Huehuetenango to come out to the hinterland and pray among the suffering. With five other American sisters, Sr. Mary Peter Rowland founded the monastery of Our Lady of Wisdom of the Virgin of Guadalupe, still the base for the contemplative order's pastoral ministry.

"Unless it extends the circle of its compassion to all living things, humanity will not itself find peace."

GSR Today - This week’s entry is all-Africa, and – as always – we’ve tried to find at least a little good news: Tunisian cooperation between Catholic sisters and the Muslim communities they serve; and South Sudan shelter upgrades for refugees thanks to Catholic Relief Services.

Sometimes it feels like I am pushing an enormous rock uphill on ever-shifting ground. Just when it seems I’m making headway, something happens and I have to redirect my efforts. Working for social change is slow-going and often feels like you’re going backwards. It is important to take the long view.

Little Sisters of the Poor Queen of Peace Residence is in a residential neighborhood at the eastern edge of the New York borough of Queens. The Little Sisters of the Poor opened the facility in 1970 and have cared for 1,240 elderly men and women there, including the 81 current residents. Twenty sisters and 95 employees serve the residents, with help from volunteers and young women in the Little Sisters' novitiate, which shares the compound.

"Because living a prophetic vocation requires strength from beyond ourselves, perhaps courage is a virtue more to be prayed for than cultivated, and certainly community support will be needed to nurture this virtue when it is given."

GSR Today - Every now and then the mainstream media gives more than just a passing glance at women religious. This is one of those weeks.

“Those who were in the dark are thankful for the sunlight . . .” I chuckled quietly as we sang this line from “Behold the Lamb of God” during Sunday’s liturgy at Our Lady of Guadalupe Monastery in sunny Phoenix, Arizona. Twenty-one sisters under 40 years of age had escaped more wintry parts of the country and traveled here for the annual Giving Voice 20s/30s retreat.

Blessed Mother Teresa is well known for her service to the poorest of the poor, but she also touched the life of Fr. Robert D'Souza, who knew her in India where he learned an important lesson about prayer.