Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

In the flurry of these holidays I have been struck much by the push and the pull, the beauty and the pain, brute strength and hope.   I so enjoy the loveliness of the lights, the invitation to be quiet.   And when I seek out some of this solitude I feel the angst of the year’s ending.   Hunger, violence, racial inequity, addiction to gratification all want to crowd out the hope that the birth of a child born in love and poverty brings. It reminds me of a favorite Christmas quote from Rilke:     “Dear Mr. Kappus, celebrate Christmas in this devout feeling, that perhaps He needs this very anguish of yours in order to begin; these very days of your transition are perhaps the time when everything in you is working at Him, as you once worked at Him in your childhood, breathlessly. Be patient and without bitterness, and realize that the least we can do is to make coming into existence no more difficult for Him than the earth does for spring when it wants to ...

Stories are among the great connectors, regardless of age, race, culture, or any other real or imagined difference between us. They ignite our imagination and can help us explore our past and present differently. For the past four months, I have had an opportunity to participate in the Catholic Sisters Oral History Project.   The purpose of this project is to capture stories about the lives of Catholic sisters in the United States. Each sister is paired with and interviewed by a female college student - the interviews are to be preserved in a digital archive in audio, video and written format. I was paired with a first year international student from Venezuela. Although she was to interview me, we sat together on multiple occasions asking each other questions out of pure curiosity. We exchanged nods of understanding and laughed a lot. Stories, storytelling, and questions of curiosity have a way of opening and connecting hearts. They help us find or re-di...