Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

In her book  See No Stranger,  Valerie Kaur   declares revolutionary love as the call of our times and asks us to "see no stranger." This week in her online reflection for   The Revolutionary Love Project,  she wrote about the above image from Del Rio. “I focus on the face of the Black man running from the horse. I am numb. I want to look away. But I look into his eyes and say ‘Brother’ in my mind a few times. The word ‘refugee’ melts away and slowly his full humanity comes into view. I imagine his children, the home he left behind, why he has risked everything to seek asylum, the fear in his heart as he runs. I wonder if his children will eat tonight. I feel hot rage in my veins at what our nation is doing to him; my numbness melts and my rage is stirring me to act. “I slowly turn to the sneering white officer on the horse. I say ‘Brother’ in my mind. My body immediately seizes with disdain and revulsion. Such a man ...

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...

Gifts have been opened. Songs have been sung.  I’ve eaten too many cookies this week.  So what has Christmas meant to me this year?   I attended all the Posadas in our parish and couldn’t help but think of the people in many parts of the world, including our own border, who, like Joseph and Mary, are asking for posada, a place of welcome, protection, shelter.  They eventually found shelter in a stable.  I have had the privilege of working in El Paso in a hospitality center for asylum seekers, mainly from Central America, and will be going again in February.   I continue to be  impressed by the graciousness of the people of that city in providing shelter, providing posada.   Christmas this year reminds me, too, that Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to seek asylum in Egypt.  They returned to their own country only after the danger was over.  Later in his life, Jesus gives us this c...