Vandals may have broken 35 windows at Sister Thea Bowman Grade School, but the small, yet thriving Catholic school in East St. Louis has shown that its spirit is unbreakable. A random act of destruction, which occurred the night before school opened in 2015, began a magical chain of events for the school community.

To address the long-standing racial divide within the United States — and within the Catholic Church in the country — Catholics should learn more about the history of that divide and honestly engage with that history and with others attempting to tackle similar issues themselves.

Each year, for the past ten years, people have gathered to honor individuals who have taken their faith out of the pews and into the marketplace — into the lives of the working men and women of our diocese, to the clients and customers who will reap the rewards of these laborers, in the clinics and hospitals, caring for the sick, in the courtroom making sure justice is served, in the lives of grief-stricken families, in the care of our children and “walking the talk” of faith in everyday life.