Cat attends St. James with her husband Neil, and two daughters Beatrice and Lucy. She also grew up in Scarsdale, and spent part of her childhood at St. James the Less! She is a high school English teacher, and has done some acting in local theaters. You'll see Cat many Sundays in the North Transept (aka Children's Corner) with her family. Here's her meditation:
Well, I initially wasn’t sure what it meant to be spiritually poor, so I did what any 21st Century scholar would do, and I looked it up on the Internet.
Google’s AI so graciously told me that Jesus’s first beatitude meant that “those who recognize their spiritual need and dependence on God are blessed. Essentially signifying humility and a reliance on God’s grace”.
So what does that look like? To be poor in spirit? I think anyone who has ever truly been lonely and lost has been poor in spirit. Maybe you’ve lost everything: your house has burned down, maybe you are sick and an illness has compromised your sense of identity… Maybe you are emotionally isolated and apathetic… I think that in our darkest and loneliest times, we are poor in spirit.
I find it fascinating that with all the technology surrounding us, we can still feel increasingly isolated – bereft and alone. I sometimes wonder if our Covid isolation ever really truly ended. But, maybe Jesus is saying that, if we turn off our phones, if we turn off the lights and block out all of the sounds and sites of this insane world and we just meditate… maybe you might be lucky enough to hear God's resonating spirit. It’s like a gentle hum. It’s quite comforting. It tells you that there is hope that there is more to all of this, because you are loved.