Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of IKAR, a Jewish spiritual community in Los Angeles, says Passover is "the centerpiece of the Jewish moral imagination and the Jewish collective memory."

"The idea that it's possible to move from slavery to freedom and from darkness to light and from despair to hope—that is the greatest Jewish story every told."

An acclaimed new movie shows that a monastery is "at once a refuge and a very integral part of the world," says Jesuit priest James Martin, and that "the life of faith is not without doubt."

Reformation historian, award-winning memoirist, and Cuban émigré Carlos Eire says reading the medieval devotional book "The Imitation of Christ" by Thomas à Kempis was "a conversion experience."

"The whole idea is to live the kingdom life here and now," says Brother Arnold Hadd of the Sabbathday Lake Shaker Village. "It's for God and the community."

Shaker communities "required of you to give your all to God to and to strive to work at your salvation each and every day," says one of the last living Shakers.

The current president of Friends of the Shakers says the communities believed they would "grow to a great number and then dwindle down to as few as the fingers on one hand, and then there would be a resurgence."

"There are a great many people invested in supporting American Muslims as part of the American community and interfaith dialogue," says Syracuse University religion and media professor Gustav Niebuhr.

"Part of what calls people to public service, part of what calls people to be engaged in helping others both here and around the world is their faith."

Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of the season of Lent for many Christans, and the imposition of ashes can serve as a reminder of human frailty, a public sign of religious faith, and an expression of pastoral care.

Despite America's trials and tribulations, one of the country's redeeming qualities is that somehow it eventually finds a way to "get it right."

As Congress debates the budget, religious conservatives say the debt is a moral issue, and an interfaith coalition has launched a campaign to reduce military spending and prevent cuts for the poor.

Writer Mary Karr says what struck her about Catholicism "wasn't the grandeur of the Mass, it was the simple faith of the people" and "the carnality of the church. There was a body on the cross."

Watch much more of correspondent Judy Valente's conversation with Mary Karr about God, prayer, poetry, and the Catholic faith.

Three expert movie-watchers discuss the moral, ethical, religious, and spiritual themes they saw in some of this year's Oscar nominees.

"You have a whole new generation of Jews and Christians for whom all this either seems old-fashioned or unnecessary or the job has been done. There’s nothing more to do. Maybe they think we’ve succeeded, but we haven’t," says one interreligious affairs leader.

"I don't sing like a showman," says the famous baritone who began singing in 1947 for evangelist Billy Graham's crusade ministry. "That's the opposite of the way I feel."

All the great religious creeds, said writer Reynolds Price, "have known forever that if we're ever to arrive at the state of anything called wisdom, pain seems to be the way we get there."

Mariners and sailors, says Rev. David Rider, often experience God's presence and absence in the depth of their souls, and for almost two centuries an ecumenical ministry based in the Port of New York and New Jersey has advocated for their spiritual and professional well-being.

"Deep down there is only one faith that all human beings have, and that is deep trust in life."