Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Last month I wrote on the topic: Anticipation, because I was heading to Rome for a global gathering of members of the Order of Preachers.  I promised to share some of that experience here. I had to let that my first trip to Rome was not going to be as a tourist.  A bit of extra time before the conference started and aspects of the schedule did allow for some sites/sights to be seen. With my travel companion, we had just enough time to see St Peter’s Basilica and even able to get into the crypt church below the altar.  By sheer chance we ran into two other Dominicans and spent the rest of the evening with them.  Most evenings of the Mission Congress concluded at various worship sites including the main church for the Order, Santa Sabina, the Great Synagogue of Rome and more. What does stand out for me is the new and renewed connections with Dominicans from around the globe.  On this side of the Rome experience, I carry the conversations and learnings I...

A while ago, I was on the road for several hours driving to a class reunion with a classmate from high school, so we had plenty of time to talk.  I told her that a process many of us had gone through told me what I already knew: I’m pretty much a complete nerd.  Then she told me that she does something no one else does: studying and working with organizations and systems.  Our conversation made me realize that we were both thinking of our limitations rather than our gifts—and how common that is. What is it that keeps us from embracing our gifts?   Or come to think of it, what does it matter?   These are our gifts.   What a waste to focus instead on what we’re not.   As I recently heard one of our novices remind herself (and us), “It’s not all about you.”   Yet because of our God-given gifts, each of us can offer unique contributions to the worlds we live in.   It’s what we can do that matters. I have to ask myself whether I focus...