Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

More tragedy, more struggling to explain to our children why our streets are exploding in yet more violence.  Once again our national consciousness is raised and we are reminded of what we can be when we draw together.  Boston could have been any city, really.  The city itself is not heroic, although the response of its citizenry may be.  It’s easy to cheer for the heroes, to cry with the maimed and to grieve with the families of the dead.  It has become too easy. Why don’t we react with the same righteous anger to similar tragedies happening everyday in our neighborhoods?  Why don’t we cry out in collective anger over the rape of a young black woman in small town USA or over the sound of incessant gunshots in impoverished Chicago neighborhoods? Sometimes it feels like our values are selective and triggered only by mass horror. That’s probably not fair but that’s how I feel. But now … now we face the “how?”  How are we called...

"Should I call you sister?" In many settings today I just go by Joan or by Joan Duerst OP.  In several situations in the past few months, however, people have said, "When you introduce yourself be sure to introduce yourself as Sister Joan Duerst."  One was when I was testifying at the Wisconsin Joint Finance Committee budget hearing.  on behalf of the 11 x 15 campaign.(reducing the prison population in Wisconsin from22,000 to 11,000 by 2013)  " By introducing yourself as sister, they will know that you are a Catholic leader.  We want it known that people of faith are asking for programs for treatment rather than prison." What does it mean to be called sister?  There are many times in my life when I was able to be sister to someone in special need of sisterly love and support.  One time I accompanied a woman from our apartment ministry to the hospital.  As she was filling out the admission papers, she asked if she could put me down ...