Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

The New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Festival is a 10-day celebration in my home town; known for great food, art works from around the country and music from local and internationally acclaimed musicians. Jazz, rhythm and blues, zydeco, gospel. Whatever the music, it always includes unscripted improvisation. There is something uniquely amazing about improvisation, even when sitting (or dancing) among thousands of people. Not only does improvisation enrich an experience of music, but also theater, preparing a meal, discovering a solution to a project we’ve taken on, etc. Improvisation inspires us to broaden our imagination. With study and practice, it invariably enhances the original idea! Some of us, however, rely so heavily on carefully scripted notes that we miss out on the joy of freely choosing ‘yes’ and participating in a new creation. Women religious are engaged in many conversations these days, about the ...

Here in Trinidad we had been having a really hot, dry, ‘Dry season’ and then last week it began to rain. Weather forecasters warned that it was not really the ‘Rainy season’ yet but.. who cares? It is raining and the dry, parched lawns are sprouting green once more. Beneath all the dryness, life continued just waiting for the rain. Isn’t that what life is like? We struggle through our own personal dry seasons when we feel like a plant withering in the heat..we struggle to collect whatever life-giving moisture we can find, so we can hold our heads up like the beautiful dry season flowers.. Then, when we least expect it, the rain begins.  How have you experienced this in your life? There was a time when lots and lots of young women wanted to give their lives to God and headed off to convents and monasteries. Today there are not so many. But there are some, and their lives bring joy to us…like our own Sr. Priscilla who made final vows recently. A Dominican mo...