Discovering Your Vocation
Do you ever wonder, what, exactly, is a vocation? One of the best definitions comes from Frederick Beuchner, who said “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.” What makes you the happiest? What does the world long for? That is where you need to be. That is your vocation. In terms of vocation in classic sense, it is a call from God. And in the Catholic […]
Read More
JUST Words Summer 2023
Click here to read the Summer issue of JUST Words
Read More
Summer Synod Updates: Preparing for the October Gathering
What’s new at the Synod? Plenty! But you could be forgiven if you aren’t up on the latest. Here’s a few links to catch you up. The Synod office recently released the 60-page working document-the instrumentum laboris-to guide the dialogue of the members of the synod when they gather in Rome October 4-29, 2023. The synod participants will work together to respond to three questions around the synod themes of communion, mission, and participation: 1. A Communion that […]
Read More
A Historical Journey on the Civil Rights Trail
By Alexis Williams My husband Rickey and I recently traveled to Alabama to visit family, staying in Montgomery in the heart of civil rights history. We embarked on a journey through some poignant chapters of this era. As African Americans, we felt compelled to pay homage to the tragedies and triumphs of this time. The Civil Rights Museum We started in Birmingham at the Civil Rights Museum-an incredible storehouse of information. We toured the 16th Street Baptist Church, […]
Read More
Feels Like Home: A Book for Every Catholic Bookshelf
A review of Susan Flansburg’s Feels Like Home: Finding Your Way to Catholic Sisterhood Though I’ve been quite aware of the shortage of Catholic sisters in the United States for some time, an experience last year took me by surprise. Our vocation director Sister Denise Glazik and I were at my alma mater-Eastern Illinois University-for a Busy Persons Retreat at the Newman Center where my religious vocation was nurtured 40 years earlier. It was Catholic Sisters Week, and I […]
Read More
Celebrating 25 years of collaboration
Twenty-five years ago, several sisters from the Mexico-based Daughters of Mary Immaculate of Guadalupe accepted a mission to teach at Immaculate Conception School in South Chicago. Because of the cultural and language challenges the sisters would face, Springfield Dominican Sister Judine Hilbing was asked by Father Michael Enright to assume the leadership of the school while continuing as principal of nearby St. Michael’s. Thus began the collaborative friendship between our community and Las Hijas-the Mexican sisters. Several Springfield […]
Read More
Visio Divina: Seeing as Prayer
Posts for the Sundays of Year C Welcome to a new liturgical year! Happy New Year! The First Sunday of Advent marks the beginning of a new liturgical year. These years are observed on a three-year cycle. On Sunday Dec. 1 we begin cycle C. Why not begin a new spiritual practice at the start of this new liturgical year with Viso Divina–holy seeing. Here are weekly pairings of a brief text from scripture and an image. The […]
Read More
Sister Ann Vincent Terracina cultivates Catholic Identity at St. Christina’s Parish
Chicago-What happens when a loved one moves or dies and the family discovers a cache of holy cards, a drawer-full of rosaries, or a box-load of saints’ statues? Well, if they know Sister Ann Vincent Terracina, these items go to her. Everyone who knows, knows she will put the items to good use. Sister Ann is well known in Chicago’s Mt. Greenwood neighborhood where she has been a pastoral minister at St. Christina’s Parish for more than 25 […]
Read More