Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

As Dominicans, we talk a lot about connections and relationships; and connecting is so much a part of us that most of the time, we don’t even think about it.   Recently, someone asked me what I’ve been doing lately; and I realized how much of my time had been spent connecting with others.   I respond to a lot of emails. I regularly forward useful information or contacts to former colleagues and students.   I check in on Facebook every so often.   I share daily meals, prayers, and conversations with the Sisters with whom I live.   I send a lot of notes, letters, get-well, sympathy, and birthday cards.   I’m often on the phone as well. None of that is surprising since relationships matter to Dominicans. Maintaining connections is part of what we are. But this also made me think: as my wise sister-in-law used to tell her growing children, prayer is an on-going conversation.    She’d tell them that they had to keep that connect...

“YOLO” – an acronym for “you only live once” - is a piece of slang my undergraduate students taught me during a class discussion about mainstream cultural values.  “People use it as a hashtag on social media.   It means that you should get out there, take risks, and make the most of life,” one of my students explained. YOLO was popularized by the rap song “The Motto,” but this term is only the most recent expression of the perennial idea that we should seize the day and remember life is short. Poet Mary Oliver closes her poem “The Summer Day” with this challenging question:   “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”   Oliver’s question and the YOLO phenomenon both point to the ongoing work of discernment – seeking to hear God’s call as we say “yes” or “no” to various possibilities and opportunities.    For me, considering the question has led to my “yes” to begin candidacy at Sinsinawa.   Our time ...