Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

One surprise of religious life, for me, has been getting to sit with sisters who are dying – that very sacred time of keeping vigil. Sitting with a couple of our sisters recently caused me to reflect more deeply on what it actually means to “vigil” - to stay awake, pay attention and to simply offer a constant presence to the one approaching that very thin veil between this world and the next.   To vigil is to sit with love and gratitude in the presence of Grace. If true, then aren’t we called to vigil every single day? At the sound of the wind, the rain, children’s laughter and bird songs, we are called to vigil, to pay attention with a posture of gratitude. At the brilliance of a starry night sky, the glow of the moon, in the warmth of the sun, we are called to vigil with a posture of gratitude. Yet we are also called to vigil in solidarity with those among us clinging to the margins of society, people who are dying - physically, mentally, and spiritually - as a res...

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...

 “Because I have human dignity.” These words were spoken to me by a teenaged Honduran boy who had fled gang violence and migrated to the US.  He was staying in a shelter awaiting his court date. As a legal assistant at a pro bono law firm, I was interviewing him to determine what form of legal presence he might qualify for. “ Porque yo tengo dignidad humana ,” was his response to my question of why he left Honduras – spoken with a firm sense of self-worth and maturity far beyond his years. Human dignity - the belief that each human being is sacred and created in God’s image - is the bedrock of Catholic Social Teaching.  Regardless of a person’s age, race, gender, nationality, sexual orientation, economic status, ability/disability, or any other factor, Catholics affirm dignity is always present.  Each and every person is precious in God’s eyes – no matter what. This past January’s “National Migration Week” had the theme “creating a cult...