Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

In May I started a new ministry.  A number of our sisters are at an assisted living facility which is not connected with our congregation.  How do you keep strong and ongoing connections with them? Well, I am one of five "caregivers", who visit 5 or 6 sisters once a week.  Though we are called caregivers our main purpose is to get to know these sisters, to see if all their needs are being met, to enjoy conversations together, and to have a few laughs. When this assisted living facility had to go into lockdown because of COVID cases we could not visit in person, but had to resort to calling.  When the restrictions on visiting were finally lifted we found out how much our presence has meant to the sisters we visited. They were overjoyed to see us!  However, we also discovered that we were just as happy to see them again.  In today's lingo I would call this a win-win situation, but also an example of the importance of connections, especiall...

We do not use this word too often. Yet we have a holiday which celebrates this ‘old’ word that describes our more common work. Why have a day to celebrate ‘labor’? Might it be so we might know the dignity associated with what we do?   There is labor at our birth. There is labor when we learn and study. There is labor when we choose to live out and act on our commitments. There is labor when we pray/meditate. What is the Spirit teaching me in these works? There is labor in relationships. What do each of this ‘labors invite you and I to ponder.   Of late the work in relationships has been much on my mind and heart. Sheltering in place during Covid has given me time and opportunity to reflect on how I show up for relationship with others and with myself. In pondering this I have been laboring to know the Holy, the Sacred in others and in myself. I have needed this reflective work of bowing before this Mystery of whom others are and who I am. It is indeed a laboring of being more ...

During these years of Covid I’ve had lots of opportunity for solitude at home. Lately though I’ve noticed that it’s easy for me to fill up the quiet with music or podcasts or radio and tv programs. I have earbuds so I can seem quiet but inside I am miles away listening to a book or a program. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. However, I am aware that it does keep me from being  PRESENT . I listen to podcasts or a book while I’m getting the dinner ready, and I am entertained by and enjoy the content. However, it does distract me from actively paying full attention to whatever I am engaged with. Peeling  this  carrot or washing  this  dish. Perhaps I have become used to filling up all the spaces.     When I go out for a walk I’ve been listening to books on my phone. Enjoyable for sure but it distracts  me from being present to the walk itself. When I switch off, I can pay attention to the wind on my skin, to the texture of the bark on t...

It was an ordinary event, a village wedding, one where everyone knew everyone else and no one expected any surprises, just a good time and some decent wine.  Except that wedding at Cana, told by the writer of John’s gospel, was far from ordinary, for Mary, for Jesus, for the wine steward, for the happy couple who pleased their guests beyond expectation – and for us.  Although we call this liturgical season “Ordinary Time” do we need to adjust our vision, our thinking, our attitude to see   beyond   what is right in front of us, to see   into   what is right in front of us, to see with the heart? Can our faith help our vision not to be completely obscured by covid exhaustion, mask frustration, absent friends and family, economic struggle – the list could go on and on.  Mary says to the steward, “Do whatever he tells you.”  We must interpret that line, that mandate, for ourselves, in our ordinary events, our time.  Love, patience, risk taking, ...

Since the beginning of 2020 and COVID following shortly thereafter, we Dominicans of Sinsinawa have said good-bye to 53 of our Sisters who entered eternal life.     Three of those Sisters left behind a biological sister who is also a member of the congregation.     This becomes an even more significant loss for those Sisters.     We, both as a community and also as individual human beings, are mourning our losses.     Our beautiful wake/remembering services and funeral liturgies do help.     Since COVID restrictions have become less stringent, we have been able to accompany a Sister’s remains to the cemetery.     This also assists us saying our “good-byes.”   Although we are happy for the Sister who has entered eternity, nevertheless, we are grieving.  Today, I gathered the memorial cards for all of these Sisters, held each of them and all of them in prayer, and recalled my connection and encounters with each Sis...

I’ve been thinking about edges lately. The edge of night and the new day. The edges of land and water and all the life forms that find home at the edge. Are you walking by the edge of a road? Are you on the edge of a decision? Are you between this and that? We all walk the edge between what is and what is not yet.   How are you navigating those edges? These places of transition and transformation? Such liminal spaces, full of beauty and possibilities.  Can be scary. The edge of the proverbial cliff springs to mind. Can be lonely.   My own physical edges have grown much more rounded than sharp, thanks in some way to the pandemic.   And perhaps also thanks to Covid I am now more appreciative of life living itself in me and inviting me to playfully explore the edge of all things.   Along which edges do you walk?   Isabel Rafferty OP Madison, WI