Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Recently, I heard an 83 year old woman share her story of how she came to discover her vocation.  She began at a very early age asking questions for which she never ceased seeking answers.  In describing her journey, she spoke with passion using words like 'attraction' 'allurement' 'call' and 'full potential self.'  She also talked about finding people with a similar passion with whom to form 'hubs.' It occurred to me how much her language mirrors language we use to describe the call of a woman to religious life.  She experiences the allurement of God, is attracted to Gospel living and seeks out a community (hub) with whom to live that call, to her fullest potential, for the rest of her life. Today, almost 800 years later, women and men still feel the allurement - the attraction - to preaching the gospel as a member of the Dominican Order according to the charism of Dominic our founder. Such is the case with Kathy F

What must it be like to leave the family you were born into, and to leave behind the language and culture of your country to go halfway around the world?  Frightening!  That was the experience of our immigrant ancestors.  My parents, for example, came to this country as children, my father from Armenia and my mother from Turkey.  They had so much to learn! Sister Vong, O.P. and Sister Lien, O.P. are currently living at our motherhouse at Sinsinawa WI.  They left their Dominican Convent in North Vietnam and accepted a mission in obedience to come to the U.S., to learn English and then to acquire degrees in order to go back to their sisters in North Vietnam to teach them.  Their teachers? Many of the retired ( former teachers) who reside at Sinsinawa. Several weeks ago, Sister Vong renewed her vows as a Dominican.  The ceremony was a truly bi-lingual experience.  Lien welcomed everyone – in both Vietnamese and English – with aplomb and great poise.  After communio