Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

“None of us lives for oneself, and no one dies for oneself. For if we live, we live for the Lord, and if we die, we die for the Lord; so then, whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s” (Rom 14:7-8). Living or dying is our collective memory of 9-11. While we sometimes focus on those who died in terrible agony, we also remember those whose lives were irrevocably changed, including ourselves. In this past decade we have been stretched by personal and communal reflection that is often unfamiliar and uncomfortable. There is no simple, final way to forgive and ask to be forgiven. In embracing Paul’s advice to the Romans, we find ourselves challenged in our basic identity. Do we really believe that we belong to all the peoples of the earth as members of Christ and his body? Do we believe that life and death truly belong to the Lord? Can we surrender our longing to be in control of life and death and rest in the Lord? When the news media replays the events of 9-11 and intervi...

I’m currently in an eleven-week class sponsored by the Dane County Sheriff.  It’s called a Citizens Academy, and I’m doing things that I never imagined would ever be part of my life! Like touring the county jail, getting a mug shot, learning about use of force, working dogs in the K-9 corps, gangs and drugs, visiting the county morgue and firing a weapon.  (Seventeen shots from a 9 mm Glock, no less!) So why am I doing all these things?! As a Dominican, study is one of the essentials of our life.  And as I get more deeply involved in prison ministry, I am reading a lot these days about the conditions in which the incarcerated are kept.  So it seemed useful to have some understanding of the pre-incarceration world that is definitely more familiar to them than to my own middle-class American experience.  This is why I consider these classes to be an essential part of my education.  I’m meeting all kinds of people whose paths I’ve never crossed before, and ...

A very sacred aspect of the ‘daily grind’ of Religious Sisters is taking time off from the ‘daily grind!’  The sisters in Trinidad did just this, only a couple of weeks ago.  Accompanied by two of our Sisters from the US we headed off to spend a weekend together at a little beach resort in Tobago.  (Tobago is our sister isle well known for its lovely beaches and diverse cultural heritage.) It was a wonderful opportunity to deepen relationships with God and with one another as we spent time praying, playing, swimming in the Caribbean sea, sight-seeing, sampling the delicacies the island offered, sharing and hearing each other’s stories of ministry and other tidbits. It also offered us time to contemplate the greatness and admire the beauty of creation and recognize there, the wonderful presence of the Creator.    Vacation time is a very spiritual experience. Even God rested on the seventh day! They are holy days of rest and relaxation as we consciously engag...