Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

This summer I had the opportunity to take a month off.  I traveled north by car.  This gave me the opportunity to pack some items for delivery to Sinsinawa and plan for several events and visits.  For the drive, I had intended to listen to lectures on spirituality and scripture but the changing scenery really captured my heart.  I drove in silence except with the GPS voice reminded me of my next route change or a car on the side of the road or even that police were spotted ahead. Driving through Kentucky there was a sign that caught my attention.  You know the digital signs set up to given instructions of a lane closure or other related notices.  What was recorded made me laugh (and to be cautious of other drivers):  “This Ain’t A Nascar Raceway!” I wanted to move that sign to Florida and plant it many places on I-95. The sign also made me think of the ways we sometimes go through life events at racing speeds and don’t take time to savor the...

Developing a practice of praying the psalms – the 150 prayer-poems from the Hebrew Scriptures – in the Divine Office has been a gift of Dominican life.  The psalms reflect the broad range of human emotions:  jubilation, anger, gratitude, loneliness, awe, and more.  There is no tidying up raw emotion – the psalms give prayerful voice to all of these feelings authentically and fully.          Recently, I have been appreciative of the psalms of lament which have been used for millennia in praying through grief and loss.   Moreover, as I begin to study Dominican life in earnest here at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate, I’ve been reminded that St. Dominic prayed and preached with tears.   I was received as a novice and sent to begin my canonical year with an outpouring of loving support and a solid week of joyful celebrations, which filled my heart with gratitude.   Yet, the events of the past week have bro...