Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I am still unpacking the rich, deep, inclusive, multi-cultural, inter-generational experience of our recently concluded community days.  Like Kathy in the previous blog, I felt overwhelmed at times.  Planning for our future, as necessary as it is in our journey together as a congregation, move me way out of my comfort zone!  What held it together for me though, was our grounding it all in an atmosphere of prayer.  The diversity of music, instruments, voices, art forms, and cultures employed to do this, and the way it was interspersed with silence, gave me moments throughout our days to return to the center, tap into Holy Wisdom deep within and offer the fruits of my contemplation to my table conversations.   I left exhausted, yes, but so grateful for who we are together, and what we are about as Sinsinawa Dominicans.   Amidst challenging moments, what grounds you? Com Gail Jagroop, OP St. Joseph, Trinid...

Quoting (as nearly as I can remember) one of our wise Dominican Brothers, “Sometimes we can’t see the picture when we’re standing inside the frame.” I experienced that the afternoon of the 2 nd full day of our annual Community Days gathering of 400+ Sisters and Associates.   As uplifting and hopeful as the days were for me, (and they were,) I found myself caught up in the machinations – the nuts and bolts - of issues about which conversations were taking place, and which were very necessary.   I looked around me, watching everyone hunched over, heads together, the buzz of conversation filling the air, and wondered, “What am I doing here? Why , again, did I leave my family, my friends, my job, my house, my car?” At that point, I stepped outside the frame and surveyed the scene through a different lens.   And I quickly remembered.   I remembered that what I left for was Mission … to work with like-minded women and men who wanted to fulfill God’s Mission, to b...