As many of you know, I belong to an international religious order of men and women, vowed religious and laypeople whose mission is to provide for the spiritual needs of people in virtually all parts of the world. We call ourselves The Dominican Family working to bring the good news of God’s love for us to all peoples everywhere no matter their religious beliefs.

News of my Dominican family in Ukraine come to me by way of a Dominican friar who serves in a leadership position there.

“Offer your dry, hypocritical, agnostic prayer to God, for God in his mercy accepts bad coin.”— Jalal al-Din Rumi In the midst of grief over thousands of deaths among both Jews and Palestinians, the children of Gaza are still capable of smiles after weeks of waiting while bargaining to exchange hostages for prisoners bring hope to…

“The ultimate test of a moral society is the kind of world that it leaves to its children.”― Dietrich Bonhoeffer A holiday message that ignores the injustice and pain of today’s world is difficult to put into words. The “good news” of the birth of Jesus, the one we call, “Savior,” is stifled by the…