Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

On Labor Day I labored to create more useful spaces in my bedroom.     The box containing books “saved to read” had been covered with a colorful afghan and many items     “To read some time” were stacked on top. Now the box is gone and “the books to read”     face me with their inviting titles visible. I found out the day after Labor Day is called “National read a book day” What a great coincidence!     I am reminded that an essential element of Dominican life is STUDY. I pledge to create a sustainable study time in my day, my week, my life. Now I am studying methods of forgiveness proposed by Robert Enright. In addition, I am reading  No Future without Forgiveness  by Desmond Tutu.  Even my fun book (light reading before bed) is  All the Forgivenesses , a novel by Elizabeth Hardinger.  All this study is helping to prepare some input time for the religious leader caucus of MOSES (Madison Organizing in Strength, E...

A few days ago, I celebrated my seventy-fifth birthday. Seventy-five is a robust number, a solid number. After all, it’s three quarters of a century, isn’t it! I have nothing against the number, but to have to attach it to my person seems bizarre.     When I think of a seventy-five-year-old woman I think of my grandmother, but that’s not who I am. There must have been some mistake in the records. But wait! What’s wrong with being seventy-five? I now have seven and a half decades of experiences to hold onto. I have, as we say, been there and done that. My bucket list is getting shorter, and I feel a deep sense of satisfaction in the realization that my life has been fruitful. I give thanks for friends and family and for my Dominican Congregation that supports me more than I deserve. Seventy-five is a ripe age and it’s time for the harvest – drawing in the wisdom and the gifts as well as the challenges that have shaped me into the woman I am. Come to think of it, I like being se...

Are you awake to the  sacrament of the present moment? What a gift to really live in the NOW! That’s all we have. The more I choose to practice mindfulness, I am able to “wake up” and welcome each day with a grateful heart. What a privilege to assist our sisters in these uncertain times as we learn to “be” and live more fully in the present moment. Together we are “waking up” to this day, discovering the sacredness of each moment.    Brother David Steindl-Rast shares a simple practice  that leads to grateful living. He encourages us to:           Stop!  Be present. . . awake. . .alert . . .aware!   Look!  Gain perspective. . .let go of judgment. . .be open. . .live in awe!      Go!  Cultivate a sense of possibility. . .deepen your appreciation for life. . .             be creative. . .make a difference!   Brother David’s “A Network for Grateful...

Three of us made up a local community for a number of years. Just recently  we became four of us.  The three of us left a residence in which we formed  community in order to join another sister who  now is able to live in the parish  house where she works. How do I find all the things that I brough t with me  in boxes?     How do we form a new community?    Prayer together is important.    Meals together are important.    In both prayer  and celebration, we meet  those that each of us has met as we have gone to  the places where God called us—                    o     The homeless person who came to the bookstore o    The sister/brother ill with cancer     o    The young person in the prayer group at prison, who was sentenced for life o    The friend whose relative just died o ...

One of the Gospel images of Jesus I have when I read and ponder scripture is that of being on the move. He is moving towards people (crowds, followers, religious leaders & even the Romans), moving people away from false claims and ideologies, calling people to move (stand and take up your mat) and more. In our time and place, trusting that Jesus travels with us, where are we going together? This past year, I continued to travel with people who yearned to hear the voice of God in their lives, to make sense of sad events and who wondered if they were worthy of God’s love.  I traveled with my Dominican congregation as we continue to look to the future needs we have together.  And these travels have not ended. I also met up with fellow travelers in the concluding days of their cross country mission to bring the truth of the work we have to do in this country to ensure all are able to not only survive but to thrive.   Nuns on the Bus  ...

I am growing in appreciation of both sacred space to pray alone and sacred time to pray together. Before community prayer each day I walk in the neighborhood.   My Dominican prayer group (three sisters and two associates) meets for prayer each day at 7am. In one part of the prayer, a short current writing from indigenous peoples is read. Those writings have made me more conscious of the carved image, a five-minute walk away on the shore of Lake Monona.  The statue was carved from a storm destroyed hackberry tree in 1991 by Harry Whitehorse of the Ho Chunk people and bronzed by the community to preserve it in 2009. The carving is named “Let the great Spirits soar”.  It is adjacent to another image formed by people 10,000 years ago who gathered by the water and built mounds in the shape of animals in which to place the human remains of their beloved dead.  So in my sacred prayer space along Lake Monona, I have become aware that I am accomp...

Every year, like most Dominicans, I dedicate some time during the summer months to retreat.  It is usually a week, but sometimes I can only fit in five days.  That was the case this year.  I went to the woods outside LaCrosse, Wisconsin.  These hermitages are about a 20 mile ride from the Mississippi River.  Gorgeous country.  Retreat brings extra time – extra prayer time, extra time for rest, and extra time to spend in silence.   I spent part of each day climbing up and down these bluffs.   It was rigorous and amazing.    I found a spring with the purest water.   A sister friend in the hermitage next door shared meals and prayer.   Rumi says: Come out of the circle of time and into the circle of love. That is what retreat allows for…extra time in the circle of love.   Peggy Ryan, OP River Forest, IL