Some 15,000 women are graduates of Mercy High School in southeastern Michigan. Since 1945, when it opened as Our Lady of Mercy High School in northwest Detroit, its graduates have embodied the school motto: "Women Who Make a Difference." In 1965, the school moved from its original building on the Mercy College campus to a mid-century modern building 11 miles away in the Detroit suburb of Farmington Hills. The school was established by the Sisters of Mercy, a Roman Catholic religious order with 6,200 sisters worldwide. Among its graduates are luminaries in the arts, medicine, sports, business, government, and military service. The Mercy Marlins sports teams have won numerous state championships in swimming, basketball, hockey, softball, lacrosse, golf, and other sports. This book commemorates Mercy High's 75th anniversary and reflects the impact of "Mercy Girls" on their communities, country, and around the world.

Since 1845, along the River Raisin in the southeastern Michigan town of Monroe, the Sisters, Servants of the Immaculate Heart of Mary (IHM) have distinguished themselves as educators, activists, and Catholic pioneers. At the congregation's peak, the motherhouse dispatched nearly 1,600 nuns to more than 100 schools across metropolitan Detroit and several states. For 175 years, the sisters taught the three Rs and the meaning of faith to nearly 700,000 students and established important metro Detroit institutions such as Marygrove College, Immaculata and Marian High Schools, and St. Mary Academy. Widely known by their initials, the IHMs have extended their reach worldwide. Monroe IHM members have served in key roles at the Vatican, as leaders of organizations representing Catholic sisters in the United States, as missionaries in Third World countries, and as groundbreaking activists and theologians. The Monroe IHMs today also attract lay women and men who dedicate themselves to the congregation's values and goals by becoming IHM Associates.

"Includes 6 full-length practice tests"--Cover.

In these linked stories, the constants are the places—from Eight Mile High, the local high school, to Eight Miles High, the local bar; from The Clock, a restaurant that never closes, to Stan’s, a store that sells misfit clothes. Daniels’s characters wander Detroit, a world of concrete, where even a small strip of greenery becomes a hideout for mystery and mayhem. Even when they leave town—to Scout camp, or Washington, DC, or the mythical Up North, they take with them their hardscrabble working-class sensibilities and their determination to do what they must do to get by. With a survival instinct that includes a healthy dose of humor, Daniels’s characters navigate work and love, change and loss, the best they can. These characters don’t have the luxury of feeling sorry for themselves, even when they stumble. They dust themselves off and head back into the ring with another rope-a-dope wisecrack. These stories seem to suggest that we are always coming of age, becoming, trying to figure out what it means to be an adult in this world, attempting to figure out a way to forgive ourselves for not measuring up to our own expectations of what it means to lead a successful, happy life.

In a reconfigured farmhouse just a mile outside of the city limits of Detroit, a Jesuit priest and 25 men, women, and children gathered to celebrate Sunday mass on March 19, 1922. The Reverend John McNichols named the Catholic mission church Gesu, the Italian word for "Jesus." Gesu became one of Detroit's landmark parishes. Its history illustrates the Motor City's boom, bust, resilience, and resurgence. It was the home parish of four Detroit mayors, powerful members of Congress, auto industry titans, sports legends, artists, authors, and actors. At its peak in the mid-1960s, Gesu School enrolled 1,600 students. Because of Detroit's decline and its racial and economic struggles, Gesu is one of only four Catholic elementary schools that remain in the city. But as Detroit rebounds, Gesu School is growing again.

Jason Cianciotto and Sean Cahill, experts on lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender public policy advocacy, combine an accessible review of social science research with analyses of school practices and local, state, and federal laws that affect LGBT students. In addition, portraits of LGBT youth and their experiences with discrimination at school bring human faces to the issues the authors discuss. This is an essential guide for teachers, school administrators, guidance counselors, and social workers interacting with students on a daily basis; school board members and officials determining school policy; nonprofit advocates and providers of social services to youth; and academic scholars, graduate students, and researchers training the next generation of school administrators and informing future policy and practice.

Twenty years after his murder at the hands of his own father, Marvin Gaye continues to define the hopes and shattered dreams of the Motown generation. A performer whose career spanned the history of rhythm and blues, from doo-wop to the sultriest of soul music, Gaye's artistry magnified the contradictions that defined America's coming of age in the tumultuous 1970s. In his most searching and ambitious work to date, acclaimed critic Michael Eric Dyson illuminates both Marvin Gaye's stellar achievements and stunning personal decline -- and offers an unparalleled assessment of the cultural and political legacy of R&B on American culture. Through interviews with those close to Gaye -- from his musical beginnings in a black church in Washington, D.C., to his days as a "ladies' man" in Motown's stable of young singers, from the artistic heights of the landmark album What's Going On? to his struggles with addiction and domestic violence -- Dyson draws an indelible portrait of the tensions that shaped contemporary urban America: economic adversity, the drug industry, racism, and the long legacy of hardship. Published to coincide with the twentieth anniversary of Gaye's death in 1984, and infused with the soulful prose that has become Michael Eric Dyson's trademark, Mercy, Mercy Me is at once a celebration of an American icon whose work continues to inspire, and a revelatory and incisive look at how a lost generation's moods, music, and moral vision continue to resonate today.

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • From the acclaimed author of Bird by Bird comes a personal, wise, very funny, and “life-affirming” book (People) that shows us how to find meaning and hope through shining the light of faith on the darkest part of ordinary life. "Anne Lamott is walking proof that a person can be both reverent and irreverent in the same lifetime. Sometimes even in the same breath." —San Francisco Chronicle Lamott claims the two best prayers she knows are: "Help me, help me, help me" and "Thank you, thank you, thank you." She has a friend whose morning prayer each day is "Whatever," and whose evening prayer is "Oh, well." Anne thinks of Jesus as "Casper the friendly savior" and describes God as "one crafty mother." Despite—or because of—her irreverence, faith is a natural subject for Anne Lamott. Since Operating Instructions and Bird by Bird, her fans have been waiting for her to write the book that explained how she came to the big-hearted, grateful, generous faith that she so often alluded to in her two earlier nonfiction books. The people in Anne Lamott's real life are like beloved characters in a favorite series for her readers—her friend Pammy, her son, Sam, and the many funny and wise folks who attend her church are all familiar. And Traveling Mercies is a welcome return to those lives, as well as an introduction to new companions Lamott treats with the same candor, insight, and tenderness. Lamott's faith isn't about easy answers, which is part of what endears her to believers as well as nonbelievers. Against all odds, she came to believe in God and then, even more miraculously, in herself. As she puts it, "My coming to faith did not start with a leap but rather a series of staggers."

When Mercy Seasons Justice is a powerful story of redemption, resilience, and humanity, set against the backdrop of the modern-day refugee crisis and Catholic Church scandals. In this moving debut novel, former Congressman David Bonior weaves together an inspiring story of two characters who dare to defy the status quo. The first is Pope Francis, the kind-hearted, unconventional leader who struggles to usher his church out of a crisis riddled with scandals. The second is Maria Elena, a Honduran mother desperate to save her four children from their terror-stricken community. As Maria and her children head north to seek asylum in McAllen, Texas, Francis grapples with unfaithful bishops and a male-dominated clergy, who rebel against the drastic changes the Church desperately needs. Just as Maria and her family must rely on the help of good Samaritans they meet along their journey—including an artistic gardener, two priests in the mold of Francis, and a New York Times reporter—Francis must seek the advice of his trusted aides, Father Soto and Sister Mary Vernard, to lead the Church through one of its biggest upheavals since the Reformation. Will Maria and her children survive their harrowing search for asylum? And, at this significant turning point in the history of the Church, will Pope Francis redefine his male-dominated papacy—and, ultimately, his legacy? When Mercy Seasons Justice is a timely narrative of hope, faith, and redemption, that intertwines the struggle of two parallel souls trying, despite all odds, to search for virtue and compassion in a world seemingly full of corruption.

Having returned to Chicago, young socialite Anna Nicholson can't seem to focus on her upcoming marriage. The new information she's learned about her birth mother continues to pull at her, and she hires Pinkerton detectives to help her find the truth. But as she meets people who once knew her mother and hears stories about the past, Anna soon discovers that some secrets are better left hidden. At the same time, unflattering stories about Anna are leaked by someone who would love to see her disgraced and her engagement broken. And as Anna tries to share her faith with her society friends, she understands that her choice to seek God's purpose for her life isn't as simple as she had hoped. When things are at their darkest, Anna knows she can turn to her grandmother, Geesje de Jonge, back in Holland, Michigan. Geesje's been helping new Dutch immigrants, including a teen with a haunted past, adjust to America. She only hopes that her wisdom can help all these young people through the turmoil they face.