Sr. Catherine has been a frequent visitor to our emergency shelter for the last 25 years, where she practices attentive listening and meditation with people availing of the service.

She says the people she has met there have taught her far more than she could offer them. She shares some of these insights and some of her experiences.

“Some people would ask me if I met them on the street; ‘how do you do the meditation again?’ And then others would have continued it on themselves and done very well.

It's a practice and it takes time, and it is about calming, quietening the mind, coming into the present moment; and because the mind is quiet, then this inner beauty and inner self can come alive to ourselves first of all and then we see it very clearly in others.

I've learned so much from sitting and being with people in the emergency shelter. My inner being hears the other person's inner being. I hear their pure gift. I hear their genuineness. I hear their wonderful compassion. There's a connection there; I connect at that level.”

Sr. Catherine recalls her father’s compassion and its influence on her ...