Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I visited my favorite park for the last time today—squeezing in one more walk in the drizzle this morning, before the next downpour.  Rarely have I experienced a rainy and overcast Colorado, but it's springtime.       Entering the park, I’m always struck first by the Tower of Memories—the mausoleum at the neighboring cemetery.  From anywhere in the park it looms in the backdrop—the imposing art deco design often partially obscured.  How portentous it seems today: soon my entire Denver experience will become memory.  The Front Range mountains frame the backdrop on the opposite side of the park.  Red winged blackbirds sing their aggressive tunes as they hover around nests hidden along the banks of the lake.  With the soft wind supporting their wings they look almost suspended from above, swinging over the cattails.  They will also be greeting me when I return to Wisconsin next week. There is also the wetlan...

One surprise of religious life, for me, has been getting to sit with sisters who are dying – that very sacred time of keeping vigil. Sitting with a couple of our sisters recently caused me to reflect more deeply on what it actually means to “vigil” - to stay awake, pay attention and to simply offer a constant presence to the one approaching that very thin veil between this world and the next.   To vigil is to sit with love and gratitude in the presence of Grace. If true, then aren’t we called to vigil every single day? At the sound of the wind, the rain, children’s laughter and bird songs, we are called to vigil, to pay attention with a posture of gratitude. At the brilliance of a starry night sky, the glow of the moon, in the warmth of the sun, we are called to vigil with a posture of gratitude. Yet we are also called to vigil in solidarity with those among us clinging to the margins of society, people who are dying - physically, mentally, and spiritually - as a res...