Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I had just left my spiritual director yesterday and was feeling at one with the universe but when I returned to where I had parked my car I couldn’t believe my eyes. There was a side mirror and smashed glass on the ground, the whole driver side and passenger side door was scrapped and the car itself now at an angle, had one wheel on the sidewalk. Not what I was expecting. I was definitely discombobulated! A man who approached me saying he had witnessed the whole incident from the window of a nearby apartment. A hit and run driver had hit his car, my car and the one just ahead of mine.  He had already called the police but since that was half an hour ago and no one had come, I called them too. Together we waited in the cold for the police to arrive. As we waited we talked. The man told me he was visiting a sick friend when he heard the noise of the crash and came racing out and tried to chase the car which had driven off on only three tires! The fourth was still lyin...

In 2008, about three years before the beginning of the conflict there, I visited Syria as part of a delegation sponsored by Catholic Relief Services.   More than one million of the four million Iraqis displaced by the US-led war in Iraq found assistance in Syria.   As Catholic women from the USA, we wanted to gather information and raise awareness about these Iraqi refugees. While we were in Damascus, we met both Christian and Muslim women who worked as partners with Catholic Relief Services.   I was especially impressed with the commitment of Sisters of the Good Shepherd there.   Now, given the escalation in the conflict, I find myself wondering about the Sisters, their co-workers and the refugees we met.   I learned recently that the Sisters (who are Syrian) have remained and still continue their work. They work courageously in Damascus and Homs. Horns is a city situated right between the town of Khan Sheikhoun, the object of the recent, deadly chem...