Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I just got back from a regional meeting in Orlando.  Twice a year in various parts of the country, our sisters and associates gather for what we call regionals. These are times when we come together for pray, conversation, congregation business, and relaxation together.   This fall our regionals are focused on preparing for our Chapter, which is a meeting that happens every five years, where we make decisions together, set a direction for ourselves and elect new leaders.   So, while there is usually business to be done and we to do that, for me, it's connecting with my sisters and the associates that feeds my soul. I love being part of this group, Dominican sisters and associates of Sinsinawa, whose focus is on mission.   These days there's a lot of chaos as we move into an unknown future.   We don't all agree on where and how we want to go, yet we listen to one another and work toward a decision that we all can live with.   And what I always know is t...

Already this month, two have written about experiences of the Dominican Sisters Conference Convocation.   This was/is my plan as well. My perspective comes as part of the planning committee.   We began our work more than 2 years ago and as it took form and focus, I came to the event excited and hopeful that those gathered would experience a deepening of our Dominican life and mission across 18 congregations of Sisters. We prayed, studied, celebrated, reconnected to friends and made new ones, we acted as one voice around the issue of Climate Change and blessed four Sisters who will be attending the global conference in Paris later this on this issue.   We did this in the context that as part of the Order of Preachers our upcoming 800 th Jubilee Year calls us to continue the Holy Preaching begun by St. Dominican and the early women and men who joined him. As the days have unfolded since the convocation, I hear from attendees how the experience continues to stir th...