Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Sixteen years ago, on September 11, 2001, I was in New York City with several of our Sinsinawa Sisters.   Four of us were attending a meeting at the United Nations and we were staying at our convent in Manhattan.   Beginning with that Tuesday morning in New York, we navigated together through the devastating and frightening days that followed the attacks on the World Trade Center.   This terrible event that we remember as “9/11” marks for me a catastrophic shift in our understanding of ourselves and of our world.   For many, “security” seems to be the reality that trumps many values that have been essential to the fabric of our nation.   Seeing the “other” as a potential threat rather than as an opportunity to encounter Jesus is a view that seems pervasive.    Each year when the anniversary of “9/11” occurs, I find myself reflecting about how this event continues to shape us.   In these days of many disasters at home and around the worl...

I read recently that students in the high school graduating class of 2016 or 2017 will be the first to have no personal memory of the events of 9/11.  They will know only what they have read and been taught.  Thus, what is written and what is said (both in and out of the classroom) can enormously influence the worldview of these impressionable young people, who will grow to lead us into an unknown future.  What they read and hear could cause them to live life either cynically and in fear, or in hope.  What they read and hear could cause them to see themselves as independent beings or as integral parts of an interconnected worldwide family and Mother Earth who sustains it.  What they read and hear could mean an increase in suspicion and oppression of the ‘other’ or to a healthy curiosity and welcoming of the rich diversity offered to all of us, by each of us. We are teachers accountable to our children and the future we are asking them to be...