Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

As we step into the practices and  opportunities of this Lenten season I am aware that a whole year has gone by in our Covid reality. My nature appreciates solitude and my own company, but I do so miss my sisters. Even though I know they are close by and that I have lots of zoom and FaceTime opportunities, like millions all over the world I miss all the in person gatherings. My closest companions these days are the birds that flock to the seeds I put on my balcony. I have Chickadees, Cardinals, Woodpeckers , Juncos, Finches, Sparrows, Mourning Doves and the occasional Bluejay. I have learned  lots from these feathered ones this year.   How to take just what I need. How to share. How to take turns. How to stay  alert. How to just BE.   I think most of all they remind me of my own place in the great scheme of things. Like them I am but one expression of this sacred diversity of life. The birds, the trees, the lake awaken me to my small unique p...

I believe we've been living a COVID Lent for over a year and counting.   Locked down. Restricted. Masked, and socially distant.   After some thought, I realized, we are much like my hardy garden veggies.  Transplanted from garden to pot. Placed in a greenhouse and covered in a mask of cloth.  The subzero temperatures like Covid threaten.  However all they request is to be watered!   Lent is about greening, being watered, replenished. This Lent let's treat ourselves to a good watering. Yes TREAT ourselves. Turning ourselves inside out, to expose our Winter/ Lenten growth. Will Community, friends, church, world see our greening and be changed by our example?   We, like my veggies, are all Covid transplants. Don't forget to water. Treat yourself. Our growth is already visible!   Caroline Sullivan, OP DePere, WI

At the beginning of 2021 unlike other years, I did not bother to make any resolutions.  As I thought that my main goal this year was ‘operation surviving COVID-19.’  My thinking at the time was what is the point of resolutions or goals in a time of COVID-19.  I must say that this way of thinking has changed for me as I have come to make some semblance of peace with the fact that COVID-19 will be here for at least the rest of this year or more.  Does that mean that I put my life on hold and not work on the areas I need to grow in and not to set the goals that I need to achieve?  Well of course not!   COVID-19 to me has been the great eye opener.  It has helped underlined to me the importance of relationships, the importance of something as big or small as a touch or a hug.  I am a hugger.  I can hug strangers and it is not a problem.  I miss hugging.  Unfortunately for me and other li...

  REALIZE DEEPLY THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL YOU HAVE.  MAKE THE NOW THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF YOUR LIFE.       Eckhart Tolle COVID-19 has stolen so much from so many.  How many had an empty chair at the Thanksgiving Day table?  Who had to search for food or shelter this Thanksgiving because of the economic crisis this disease has brought upon us?  The Center for Disease Control tells us that long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. This week begins Advent, the liturgical season in which our church joins together to wait for the coming anew of God in our midst.   It is such a struggle in our COVID-ridden world to wait for anything. Eckhart Tolle, spiritual guide and author, calls us to stay in the present moment.  All we have, he says, is the “now.”  Looking...

For some, the title words will quickly bring the song and its' melody to mind.  I'm thinking about the last time I heard that song and who I was with.  It was recent. There are so many ways we connect as Sisters and in this time of Covid-19 some of us in the Chicago area zoom a couple of times a month to share our news.   One of the Sisters in our group got news that her cancer had returned.  It was hoped that treatment would bring her some time, but it was soon clear that was not to be.  She made the decision to enter hospice.  And many of her friends, colleagues and Sisters took turns being with her around the clock. During my first visit, we could hear a guitarist and singer visit another patient.  At one point she began the singing: "I can see clearly, now..."  Michelle opened her eyes and looked at me, I began singing the song and to my delight, she tried a few words herself.   As we shared th...

Tense, anxious, afraid, hopeful, cautious and now relief and joyfully optimism. These are some of the feelings that have recycled through my system since last Tuesday. I’ve tried to let go but these feelings kept coming back.   It has been difficult to live with the unknown, to let go of a deeply desired outcome.   And yet I do know that change is a constant part of this ever evolving life on earth. I realize how attached I am to the illusion of being in control and am humbly aware that with Covid and election results, how little control I really have.   So I take refuge with a merciful God in whose cosmic embrace I am given life. I walk amongst the trees and by the lakeside and my perspective adjusts. I watch the birds feeding from the seed I have scattered outside my window. I watch them drink and fluff their feathers in the bird bath. They have no concerns about the elections or Covid. They go about their lives expressing in their very being the mystery of God.   ...

Recently I was watching  Amanpour & Company  on PBS as Andy Slavitt talked about Covid-19 and the impact of wearing masks. He believes that if 80%-90% of people wore masks consistently, the virus would almost disappear. When he was asked why wearing masks is such a problem for people in the U.S., he said that because there is such a deep cultural value placed on individual liberties, many don’t want their lives to be inconvenienced on behalf of other people. To explore this idea further, he suggested making 2 lists: One with words such as individualism, entrepreneurship, great wealth; and the other, with things such as society, community, equality. He speculated that countries described by the 2 nd  list will have fewer Covid cases because they are willing to wear masks out of concern for others. He mentioned Japan and several African countries as examples. This was a new moment of clarity for me. It is straight up evil that the value we place on individual liberties ...

  “Purchasing is always a moral and not simply economic act.”   Pope Francis.  Laudato Sí.  Paragraph 206   We are in the last week of the Season of Creation (September 1 - October 4).  Pope Francis has issued a message for this time.  In it he writes: “The disintegration of biodiversity, spiraling climate disasters, and unjust impact of the current pandemic on the poor and vulnerable: all these are a wakeup call in the face of our rampant greed and consumption.”     With the onset of the COVID 19 pandemic, grocery shelves went empty of toilet paper and other basic necessities.   While some stockpiled, others were left without.  This is clearly an injustice.     As religious we are not exempt from falling prey to the culture of greed and consumption.  The temptation is real, to hoard.  Becoming a religious does not take away this temptation but in the company of o...

I live in Austin, TX.     Normally I go north for the summer and spend a month at our Camp WeHaKee in northwestern Wisconsin.     It is a wonderful place where girls are surrounded by beauty and can be themselves, make new friends and learn new skills.     I love being there.     As with most things this year, camp was cancelled, so I’m still here in Texas.  However, thanks to technology, the camp staff, helped by many others, has put together “Bring WeHaKee Home” and made it a part of my summer.  Even though it is not the real thing, it has brought together many campers, counselors, parents and camp alumnae to create and participate in some significant camp experiences.  I’ve especially enjoyed the council fires and evening prayers. So in the Texas heat and in spite of Covid, I’ve been a part of camp in a new way and appreciate all the work of the many people who made it happen. What are you grateful for this summer?...

The St Dominic Window in the Queen of Rosary Chapel. Sinsinawa, WI August 8 th   is the feast of Saint Dominic.     I think it is an appropriate day to ask what would St. Dominic do in the light of two pandemics – one spreading a deadly disease and the other spreading the sin of racial injustice. What would St. Dominic do?  I find the answer an easy one because our Sisters and Associates, the daughters of Saint Dominic, are guiding us to the truth.  As a result of COVID-19, we have Sisters and Associates who are in hospitals and nursing homes, schools and social service agencies.  They are burying the dead and feeding the hungry.  They are accompanying the most vulnerable.    As a result of the current racial unrest, we have Sisters and Associates protesting and speaking out.  There are also those who are continuing to caucus or discuss with other White Sisters and Associates how we can rid our congregation of th...

I am guessing that many of us may or may not be tired of hearing about this this time being referred to as the “new normal”.  You may have asked yourself what does this even mean?  Maybe just another nice phrase.  Before COVID-19 things were business as usual for me and for many others I am sure.  I was not really taking enough time to reflect on the preciousness and fragility of life.  I was so totally consumed by ministry and all that I had to get done within any given day.  Hardly taking the time to smell the proverbial roses.  This time of COVID has taught me than in this global reality I live in, that we all need each other.  What I do way over here in Trinidad & Tobago can have an impact on others in other parts of the world and universe.  We are so intimately connected and made to be interdependent, called upon to help each other in our good times and in our trying times.  It is thr...

In a terrifying way, the twin pandemics of Racism and Covid-19 may bring us to the brink of all that could save us as a people. Jan Richardson’s reflection in  Circle of Grace , invites us to see a blessing in this moment. “This Grace That Scorches Us” Here’s one thing you must understand about this blessing: it is not for you alone. It is stubborn about this. Do not even try to lay hold of it if you are by yourself, thinking you can carry it on your own. To bear this blessing, you must first take yourself to a place where everyone does not look like you or think like you, a place where they do not believe precisely as you believe, where their thoughts and ideas and gestures are not exact echoes of your own. Bring your sorrow. Bring your grief. Bring your fear. Bring your weariness, your pain, your disgust at how broken the world is, how fractured, how fragmented by its fighting, its wars, its hungers, its penchant for power, its ceaseless repetition of the his...

Didn’t it seem like spring would never arrive this year.  And while we were waiting, COVID-19 came to our world and began to wreak havoc among us.  As we watch news reports, we see so much suffering and devastation, and yet at the same time we witness the best in human beings’ care and compassion for one another.  As we ponder the dark days in our lives and continue to hope for more light at the end of this tunnel, we grasp for hope, faith, and ever more insight.   A breakfast conversation with some of our sisters some time ago (before social distancing) led me to believe that suffering does, in fact, make us stronger, give us wisdom, and in the end, enables us to be the women we are today – powerful, durable, intelligent, prudent, hopeful women of faith able to share the “Good News” that God is indeed with us throughout all we are experiencing. So I’ve continued searching for the signs of spring, and I have begun to see my favorite image...

What a time we are in and how creative we are called to be. How prayerful we need to be of those globally who have contracted COVID-19.  But I have an issue... with the phrase "social distancing." As this time of sheltering in place and paying attention to potential symptoms, I realized what I am asked to do is be  physically distant .  With limited physical shared space besides the Sisters with whom I live, it is interesting to see how staff at the grocery stores & pharmacies do their jobs with and for us and also keep distance. We need not be unsocial in our interactions but cautious with our physical presence. We all need social, spiritual, emotional and soul-filled connections. Where I live, we may take walks and be mindful of physical space, but a greeting and wave is a way to socially acknowledge the other we see. Some of my walks are silent meditations, some I listen to a podcast or a radio station.  The best are those when I call a frien...