Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Cruise ships pull into the Juneau Harbor every day during the summer--sometimes as many as five on a given day.  Passengers are into the leisure and shopping scene while crew members try to snatch a few hours on shore to shop for personal items or perhaps just to be on land. This summer a dancer on one of the ships asked to be baptized.  She had wanted this for a long time, but circumstances and a somewhat transient life style prevented her from being in a structured program of catechesis.  With the help of several chaplains and a committed godmother (lead singer on the ship) she began the process of becoming Catholic on the ship itself.  Once a week the ship came to Juneau and during those days she connected with us at the Cathedral.  After meeting with her several times I knew her heart was ready and that she understood the basics of the faith she was soon to embrace.  With the whole cast from the ship and her parents prese...

I’m taking a Vows class at Aquinas this year with one of the topics being on charism.  In Finding the Treasure , Sandra Schneiders calls charism “a grace given for the sake not only of the recipient but also and primarily for the upbuilding of the Church.” In addition to the Dominican charism, rooted in the four pillars of community, prayer, study and ministry, there is one that is more particular to Sinsinawans, summed up in Fr. Samuel’s exhortation, “Let us set out for any place where the work is great and difficult, but where also with the help of the One who sends us, we shall open the way for the Gospel.” I may not encounter the same physical hardships that Fr. Samuel and our founding Sisters did, but the work of opening the way for the Gospel can still be challenging, still often great and difficult.  The way seems key – a channel through which Gospel truths and values flow freely from one person, one group, to another and back; a channel tha...