FoC 168: A Hopeful Way Forward for Racial Reconciliation with Chenele Shaw

What can we do as Catholic laypeople to end racism and support our Catholic brothers and sisters of color? Chenele Shaw asked just that questioned and started her own non profit, The Before Gethsemane Initiative, which seeks to educate on difficult topics with an authentically Catholic understanding of the inherent dignity of the human person. We’re so thrilled to be talking with Chenele in this episode!

Chenele is a former youth minister and theology teacher and a current young adult trying to live her life for Christ, frequent her therapist, and eat all the cheese! She desires to be her authentic self and help others to as well. Chenele has written for many Catholic publications including The Grotto Network and The Catholic Woman. She is a member of the board for The Human Condition Community which focuses on the integration of faith and mental health. Chenele is also working towards beginning her Masters education for clinical mental health counseling. In her free time you can find her watching reality tv, going to confession, and updating her Spotify playlists.

In this episode Chenele shares about the exciting new initiative she helped to form. She is so full of hope and passion for loving the Church by pursuing truth, justice, and unity in the Body of Christ and after listening we think you’ll have more hope, too.

Things we talked about in this episode:

The Pillar article about Before Gethsemane

Sponsor: The Little Catholic Box

The Little Catholic Box is a quarterly subscription box for Catholic women.  Each quarter, the owner Erica curates a bunch of fun, unique Catholic items around a spiritual theme.  It’s a delight for subscribers, and a blessing to the artists, creators and small businesses whose items get featured.

Their fourth quarter boxes are shipping to subscribers this month, and they have a limited number of single boxes available for purchase!

If you’d like to take a look, visit thelittlecatholicbox.com. You can order a single box directly from their home page.

While single boxes are currently available, new subscription signups are closed until December.

If you need a fabulous Christmas gift idea for a Catholic woman in your life, you can hop on their waitlist now so that you have early access when subscriptions are available in December.

New subscribers signing up in December will get their first box in February, but if you purchase as a gift, Erica will send a personalized Christmas card to either you or the gift recipient with a bonus gift, so that there’s something tangible to stick under the tree.

Get on the waitlist at thelittlecatholicbox.com/FOC to get access to the bonus gift when subscription signups are opened back up in December.

This episode is also sponsored by Happy Nest Home Goods

Happy Nest Home Goods celebrates doing small things with great love with their modern Catholic embroidery art, patterns, and kits as well as their line of beautiful sacrifice beads for the whole family. 


Sacrifice beads are the perfect spiritual stocking stuffer for everyone on your list, including those hard-to-shop-for men in your life.


Sacrifice Beads were used by St. Therese as a little girl to count small acts of kindness or little sacrifices made for love of others throughout the day. Each time you offer something up (being patient, stubbing your toe, doing a hated chore, feeling disappointed or hurt,) slide a bead towards the Crucifix and unite your sacrifice to Christ’s on the cross, making it a “little present” for Jesus as St. Therese did. This beautiful practice will help foster your ability to see opportunities to offer every moment to God. 

Sacrifice beads come in a wide variety of beautiful styles, including stunning ceramic floral and genuine olive wood beads from Bethlehem! There are even adorable peg doll ones for kids and they can even be used as a decade rosary.


Theresa of Happy Nest Home Goods also just released new beginner-friendly embroidery kits for Advent and Christmas that are perfect to gift to the crafter in your life OR for you to add a handmade touch to your Christmas gifts this year! She also has a wide variety of instant download embroidery patterns that are perfect for last-minute gifts.

Don’t forget to check out her whole line of gorgeous stickers, jewelry, and needle minder lapel pins featuring her original artwork!

Grab yours at www.happynesthomegoods.com and use code FOC10 for ten percent off your entire order over $35 through December 14th! You can also follow her @happynesthomegoods on Instagram and Facebook.

Connect with Chenele:

England Trip!

WE ARE GOING TO ENGLAND next summer and we want you to come with us! Check out our previous episode or view the travel details here.

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Head on over to support the podcast as a patron and get access to special episodes available exclusively to patrons as well as to the FoC Slack community! You’ll also have access to our patron book clubs and receive a cute sticker in the mail from us. We’re reading Jane Austen’s Persuasion and we’d love for you to participate so join today.

Come hang out with us!

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