Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

The motto of the Dominican Order is veritas…truth. We are truth-seekers. This week could be called a week of veritas, of truth-seeking. June 14 is Flag Day, a day celebrating the first flag resolution passed by the Second Continental Congress, made official later in 1949; a day regarded as one way to teach children about history. June 19, also known as Juneteenth, is the oldest known celebration honoring the end of slavery in the United States, the day when the Civil War ended and slaves were ‘set free’, even though people of color are still fighting for equality and justice. The problem I see is that our history has most often been taught through the lens of those holding power, through the perspective of white people. In our pursuit of truth, we must ask what history is  not  being taught? Who/what people are invisible in our telling of ‘history’? Whose very real and painful stories are not being told?  I wasn’t taught about white supremacy (except in relationship to Hi...

  REALIZE DEEPLY THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL YOU HAVE.  MAKE THE NOW THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF YOUR LIFE.       Eckhart Tolle COVID-19 has stolen so much from so many.  How many had an empty chair at the Thanksgiving Day table?  Who had to search for food or shelter this Thanksgiving because of the economic crisis this disease has brought upon us?  The Center for Disease Control tells us that long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. This week begins Advent, the liturgical season in which our church joins together to wait for the coming anew of God in our midst.   It is such a struggle in our COVID-ridden world to wait for anything. Eckhart Tolle, spiritual guide and author, calls us to stay in the present moment.  All we have, he says, is the “now.”  Looking...