Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Recently, I was reminded that June has been designated as “LGBT Awareness Month” in the USA.   This caused me to recall one of the many things that I learned during my years of work in Native American communities. Before colonization by Europeans, persons who were gender variant (the male female; the female male) were called “two-spirited” in many Native American cultures. Usually, such persons were valued because they were blessed with two spirits, both male and female. Two-spirited people were often the visionaries, the medicine persons, the nannies of orphans and the caregivers. With colonization (along with a particular interpretation of Christianity), two-spirited persons increasingly lost their respected place in indigenous communities. Our Catholic Church teaches that all persons are created in the Divine image and, therefore, have inherent dignity.   Pope Francis, in his recent document, Amoris Laetitia , applied this teaching when he reminded us, “We would like b...

Last week I had the privilege of being with our Sister Marie Lee in her last days here on earth.   She was 98 years old and spent 71 of those years as a vowed Sinsinawa Dominican Sister.   In her active years of ministry she was a teacher, a band leader, a founder of a sewing program for Hmong immigrants, a spiritual guide and mentor to many women.   Having been given the gift of a long life, she spent the last years of her life in contemplation.   She read the current spiritual books on the “new cosmology” and willingly shared her deep insight into this new understanding of God in the Universe.      When one of the nurses asked, how she as a nurse could achieve her tranquility and peace?   Sister Marie responded, “By being yourself.”   This reminded me of EE Cummings poem To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day,            ...