Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

One of my many duties at Most Blessed Trinity Parish is teaching an advanced English class on Wednesday nights to students learning this language.   It is one of the greatest privileges of my week to come together with these eager scholars and study.   I learn so much from them.   This past week we started a new semester.   I discovered in the course of the evening that some of these students work over an hour away and begin work at 5:30 a.m.   What an amazing commitment they are making to come to a night class in order to learn another language.   For Dominicans, study is essential.   St. Dominic told us to not only strive to live the gospel, but to be constant students of the Word as well.   I am so inspired by these students.   This is the essence of ministry.   I may start out the evening at the front of the class, but I always end up the night seated with everyone else.   The student becomes the teacher and vice-versa. A...

I was in the hospital this week.   It was only a brief stay but the lasting impression was that everyone was so NICE !   (It probably helped that it was the hospital where I had done CPE and was a chaplain!)   It’s a teaching hospital so they are accustomed to students coming and going.   Still, I was impressed as an “outsider” this time by the competence of everyone and their friendliness. I appreciated the chaplain visits I had, including the one from Gary, who is older and who I have known for years, and who is from the Evangelical Free Church of America, and Lars, an Episcopal student, who felt intimidated by me.   I was older, a Dominican and an experienced chaplain, after all.   But he did fine and their prayers for me focused on all the right things.   So one of the things I loved about CPE were all the denominations that were present. The mix was great, and we were all able to learn from one another.   (There weren’t any other rel...