Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

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 ...

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...