Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

My birthday falls on June 14 th —the same day this blog falls due. Our lives are made of up a series of sometimes minor and sometimes significant dates.   Because we’re the conscientious sort, most of us try to attend to the first type of date and pay attention without giving too much significance to the latter.   I keep lists, for example, of things I should get to on any day—from sending an anniversary card to getting to an appointment.   I suppose I consider my birthday among the significant dates.    (I’ve forgotten the dates of my graduations; I’d forget most other dates if I didn’t have them written down.)   My folks always made a minor fuss about our birthdays:   Mom made a cake on that day. Since my birthday fell in June, we often went on a picnic.   I remember that the water was always a bit cold for swimming but I went in anyway. As adults, we may feel that we should put away childish things such as caring about our birthdays....

This past weekend, I participated in a special Mass and reception to mark the closing of one of our community’s high schools in the Chicago area.  Queen of Peace High School opened fifty-five years ago and about 15,000 young women were educated there.  Due to declining enrollment and related financial challenges, it is not feasible to continue to operate the school. The closing event was bittersweet: alumnae were saddened to see the school close but grateful for all that the school had meant in their lives. One of the many aspects of life at Queen of Peace High School that touched me most was the deliberate effort to empower each student become a “Woman of Peace”. The school environment emphasized “being peace” and “bringing peace”. An annual award was given to the student who best exemplified this quality. I was inspired as I read the words and phrases used to describe those students awarded in this final year: dedicated to building community; treating others with ...