Global Sisters Report, Oct. 22, 2020, by Julie A. Ferraro Change a Heart Franciscan Volunteer Program A faith-based volunteer program in southwestern Pennsylvania, Change a Heart Franciscan Volunteer Program brings young people between the ages of 21 and 30 from all over the country to the Pittsburgh area to serve children, youth, adults and seniors in the [...]
Matthew 6 By Sister Marianne Ferguson When we see the word OUR we notice the thought of ownership. In a sense, God belongs to us, and so the opposite must be true. We belong to God. God has called us into his own, and our relationship is mutual. We are in a family relationship with [...]
SOCIAL JUSTICE Having her volunteers register voters three days a week for the last two months in Youngstown, Ohio — not to mention the training and preparation beforehand — has been a lot of work, but Humility of Mary Sr. Ann McManamon said it's worth it. McManamon is director of the Dorothy Day House of Hospitality in [...]
The women living in the slums in and around Timau, Kenya, face huge challenges of survival. Many are breadwinners as elderly and unwell grandmothers, raising their grandchildren, single women raising their children sometimes even carrying their babies to work, and young girls raising their own children or their younger siblings trying to get enough food [...]
After last semester’s online education program, students, teachers and staff of All Saints Catholic Academy in Bayonne, New Jersey are back in the classroom. Principal S. Rita Marie Fritzen says they started the school year with “most of the students back in school.” They are taking precautions, including temperature scanners at the entrance door, teachers [...]
The singing paused but the painting endures. Song is banned during the coronavirus pandemic for the sisters at the Franciscan Villa in Syracuse. Vocally quiet for now, high soprano and art teacher Sister Joselle Orlando, OSF, has painted a 22-by-26-inch watercolor, “St. Francis’ Mystical Love Song Embraces Our Pandemic.” Read more about her painting and [...]
Exaltation of the Cross (John 3: 13 - 17) By Sister Laurita Kelly In Monday’s Gospel Reading it shares, “No one has gone up to heaven except the one who has come down from heaven, the Son of Man. And just as Moses lifted up the serpent in the desert, so must the Son of [...]
Franciscan Spirit - Summer 2020 Sister Alice Gilabert spends a lot of time thinking about where people will spend eternity. Sister ministers as the secretary for St. Aloysius parish cemetery in western New York. There she is responsible for everything related to burial, from working with funeral homes to arranging for the grave to be [...]
Franciscan Spirit Summer 2020 Sister Barbara Ann Bogden says candidates should not become Catholic just because a spouse or fiancé is, but because the individual wants to do for himself. In the 20 years she has been directing RCIA for two parishes in western New York, she finds people’s reasons for becoming Catholic vary by [...]
Sister Fran Gangloff has created several presentations connecting the Stations of the Crib and the Cross and the coronavirus, consisting of photos she has taken and adjusted using photo apps and prayers she wrote based on St. Francis’ Canticle of Creatures. There are both long and short forms of these presentations that you may wish [...]