The San Damiano Foundation, www.sandamianofoundation.org/, produces films highlighting the spirituality of Saints Francis and Clare of Assisi and the Franciscan concerns for social justice, peace, and nonviolence. Under the guidance of author, photographer, and filmmaker Gerard T. Straub, who is a Secular Franciscan, and his staff, the foundation produces fundraising films for Christian charities which aid the world’s poor. It also screens films at churches, high schools, and universities across the United States.

The foundation gets its name from the church outside Assisi, Italy where in the year 1205 Saint Francis, not long after his decision to commit himself to God, went to pray and seek guidance about whether he should lead a life of solitude and contemplation or service to the poor and spreading the gospel. While praying in San Damiano, which was deteriorating, he heard the voice of Christ say, “Francis, go repair my house which, as you see, is falling completely to ruin."

He understood this command literally, and so he begged supplies and rebuilt the church a brick at a time. After completing the restoration a year later, it then dawned on Francis that Jesus also meant the whole church, and so Francis set upon the tasking of rebuilding and renewing the universal church, as well as himself.

San Damiano Foundation's productions include films on poverty—both material and spiritual—soup kitchens, migrants, contemplation, and people heroically making a difference by working among the poor and the sick.

The next time you receive communion, there’s a chance the original wafer came from the hands of the Benedictine Sisters of Perpetual Adoration. Maintaining a tradition of making altar bread the sisters have passed down through generations, these Benedictines produce 2 million breads each week in their Clyde, Missouri monastery.

The sisters began baking altar bread in 1910, using an open fire and cast-iron baker. Now they distribute wafers to churches in the United States, several other countries, and, they say, “on the high seas.”

By baking breads, the community supports its contemplative lifestyle and also participates in the liturgical and spiritual life of the church. They have been featured on television program Religion & Ethics Newsweekly.

Not long ago, the sisters addressed a pressing need that seemed to have no satisfactory solution. In keeping with the belief that Jesus used a wheat bread at the Last Supper, Catholic teaching has required that communion bread be made with wheat and contain gluten, a protein found in wheat. At the same time, as many as one in 133 people suffer from celiac disease, which prevents them from consuming gluten.

In an attempt to create a gluten-free bread, the sisters found a company that produced wheat starch, which is wheat with the most of the gluten removed. After much trial and error, they finally produced usable altar bread that held together, was edible—and contained only 0.01 percent gluten, or 1/270 of the maximum amount of gluten a celiac can consume each day. Problem solved!

Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt doesn’t let age—or height, for that matter—get between her and her work as chaplain to the Loyola University Chicago men’s basketball team.

Seventeen years ago, Sister Jean, a member of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, planned to retire. But Loyola’s then-president convinced her to take a job counseling basketball players about dealing with the demands of sports and academics.

Her role evolved into team chaplain, and these days she leads the team in prayer before tip-off, cheers them on during the game, and makes herself available as a friend and someone to talk to.

Soon after the university hired coach Jim Whitesell, Sister Jean walked into his office and told him, “It’s great to have you.” Then, Whitesell says, “she gives me a five-minute lecture on what I need to do with the program. She said, ‘You need to work on team spirit,’ and this and that. I was taken aback, but she was right on point.’ ”

“Sister Jean is our biggest supporter,” says junior forward Tom Levin. “She always has faith and confidence in us, and she can always put a smile on our faces. Sister Jean has taught me to believe in myself and the team, and has shown us that hard work will pay off in the long run.”

During her tenure as chaplain, Sister Jean says has “learned what it really means to work hard and give up your entire self. Sometimes we don’t think that young people do that, but these young men do, and it shows.”