This issue provides materials for further reflection on many of the significant events and movements in the lives of US women religious in recent years. These include the emphasis on intentional contemplation, greater awareness of the universe story, the apostolic visitation, the doctrinal assessment of LCWR, and all the dynamics that go with these events. How are women religious sensing a new consciousness of the significance of religious life in these times? How are religious sensing a shift in their own self-definition as religious and their understanding of what religious life can potentially be? The issue also provides a means for reflecting on the church’s "Year of Faith" and the commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Second Vatican Council. How is the fidelity of religious to the call of Vatican II fidelity to the invitation to evolutionary leadership in a living church?