Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

That is the shout you hear from our parish basement as our Latino women join together in a group we have named Santa Catalina after St. Catherine of Siena.  We begin with aerobic exercise, form a circle and eat a family meal together with our children and end with sharing “how the week went” for each of us.  The final sharing is done in the context of prayer.  This integrated spirituality is as relevant today as it was 800 years ago when St. Dominic preached against the heresy of dualism that says the corporal world is corrupt and only the spiritual world is good.  One of the blessings of our gathering is the way in which we are building community, making friends and being a presence to one another.  The relationships that we are forming are powerful and transforming us into a community where we experience more fully the meaning of the “Body of Christ.”  I truly believe the only way forward is community. How have you experienced the transformative power of...

During these early August days, we mark the 71 st anniversary of the first and only use of nuclear weapons for warfare.  The two bombings -- Hiroshima (Aug, 6th) and Nagasaki (Aug. 9 th ) -- killed at least 129,000 people in 1945.  I learned only recently that Nagasaki was home to the largest Catholic population in Japan; St. Mary's Urakami Cathedral was used by the bombing crew as its target.  How is it that national identity can “over-rule” our shared identity as followers of Jesus?  Too often, we make national differences more important than being children of the same God and members of the same human family.  How can we nurture a world view that treasures what we have in common as human beings and that celebrates our rich diversity?  Did you watch any of the opening ceremony of the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio? The gathering in one place of nearly 11,200 athletes from 206 countries gave me some hope for our world. ...