Catholic in the City: A Woman's Journey to Living Out Her Faith

A barren island. This is the sight we encountered when we took an air boat on Tuesday, March 16th, 2010 to a barrier island on the North Shore of Lake Pontchartrain in Louisiana. What is a barrier island? A barrier island is an island that is a buffer for the land when hurricanes come through. These barrier islands, not only help as a buffer, they also have wildlife that live on them, therefore keeping the ecosystem of the wetlands alive and vibrant. Barrier islands in Coastal Louisiana are also called wetlands. These wetlands/islands are also important because they prevent flooding by holding water much like a sponge. As stewards of creation (Gen 1:28) we must be aware of what we are doing to our earth and attempt to remedy the wrongdoings. The barrier islands of coastal Louisiana are slowly deteriorating. This erosion is occurring because of several factors such as: hurricanes, human made levees to direct the Mississippi River from flowing in its natural course, and the drilling of

From March 14th to 20th, 2010, I was in New Orleans, Louisiana on a spring break service trip with college students from the University of New Mexico and resident parishioners from the Aquinas Newman Center. On Thursday night Jocelyn Sideco, the executive director of Contemplatives in Action ( http://www.contemplativesinaction.org/ ), the non-profit that helped to plan our trip, led us in a evening of reflection. We had been having very deep evening reflections as a team, but this evening, Jocelyn gathered all forty of the participants staying at the location we were staying at for prayer. We lined up in four straight lines of ten. She had us stretch and then close our eyes. She had us reflect upon our senses and what we had experienced in New Orleans via our senses. The next few blogs will highlight a sense and give at least one example of how that heightened my experience of New Orleans. Touch. On Thursday morning we went to the Lower Ninth Ward Village Community Center. Mac, a man

"They will know we are Christians by our Love." Today I heard a speaker, Thomas Awiapo, speak upon his experience with Catholic Relief Services (CRS). The first sentence I wrote was how he started his talk; a Catholic hymnal. He spoke of the beauty of his country, Northern Ghana, the moon, the simple things like brushing ones teeth with twigs, and the tragedies of poverty such as hunger. Mentioning that poverty and riches can both be beautiful and difficult; that we must live in harmony and not in constant struggle with the powers that be. Thomas did not know his parents. They passed away before he could remember. He was left with three brothers. They would cry a lot because they were so hungry. He talked about how at times the four of them would crowd over a small bowl of food and fight over it; survival instinct. He saw two of them die of hunger right in front of him. Then one evening his older brother said to him that this life was too hard, by the morning, his brother wa

St. Dismas and Jesus On Saturday, as part of the Newman Justice Walking group, we went to Dismas House. Dismas House, as mentioned in another blog, is a home for motivated people who are on parole and probation to successfully transition into society. While we were there one of the social workers told us who the patron of Dismas was. Although not a lot is known about St. Dismas the little that is known is powerful. St. Dismas was the man crucified next to Jesus in Calvary. He repented to Jesus before he died and then Jesus said, "Amen, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise" (Lk 23:43). This penitent man is therefore known as the saint of second chances. About fifteen minutes into eating lunch with the residents of Dismas House a man came in and sat right in front of me. Outwardly he seemed not put together. I judged him immediately. Then he started to eat. He ate as if he had not eaten a meal in days. Food was flying everywhere. I judged him again. After this s

An image I took from a housebuilding trip to Juarez a few years back with UNM college students. Below is an article I wrote for the People of God, the Catholic Archdiocesan Newspaper for the Archdiocese of Santa Fe. It will be published in April. College Justice Walking: A Journey of Faith and Transformation Do you know what Catholic Social Teaching is about? Catholic Social Teaching has been said to be the best kept secret of the Catholic Church. Twelve students at the University of New Mexico’s Aquinas Newman Center are embarking on a journey to learn and live the Church’s social teachings with a program called College Justice Walking. The Newman Center has been asked to be a pilot group for this program in the country. This seven week series, including an opening and closing retreat, opens up the rich treasure of the Church’s social teachings through prayer, praxis, and the educational components of reading, the bible and supplemental books, and discussion. These students will be