Joyce Coleman sings the soul of a community whose faith has been tested by fire across generations, centuries, in this country. To sing such a faith is, for this white Catholic, to be filled with wonder and gratitude—beyond words, beyond speech, beyond concept.

My parents never told me this, but parenting adults is hard.

Lent is when we sit down in a loud and confusing world and try to figure out what we’re doing here. That is all the more important for the people who are most confused.

Mary Stephen Healey, R.D.C. has continued to lead and serve the students, faculty and families at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel School in Elmsford, N.Y., even during a pandemic.

We begin each Mass like the disciples, locked in our rooms, isolated and maybe afraid. Then out of nowhere Jesus appears in our midst and brings us together.

Even as a child she sensed that Africa was her destiny, the roots of her mission vocation found in a fourth-grade geography textbook that pictured giraffes loping across the plain