Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Dominicans talk about Study being one of the pillars of Dominican life. Lately, I’ve been thinking lately of how that means so much more than “book study.”   True, Dominicans are traditional students with degrees and certificates; some of us have impressive vocabularies and skills; these all evidence book-learning.   Study should, however, encourage so much more in us than piling up “credits.”   Study and everything else we do is, after all, in service to our mission: to preach the gospel.   Formal study is only part of an attitude of learning.   We keep learning from everything we do. That is what matters.   Recently, when I rewrote a book review for an academic journal, a couple of editors made suggestions that helped me write a better review.   One of the computer techs at Edgewood College helped me recall the ins and outs of an editing program I hadn’t used for years.   Dominicans do tend to read a lot of scripture and theology, but a...

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...

Two sisters reminded me this past week that I am called to be a life long student. I stopped in to see Sr. Margaret.   We greeted one another and before I could start a conversation, she asked me to wait. She slowly began to speak in Spanish and was able to complete a whole sentence.   A few years ago, she told me she hoped one day to converse with my parents in their Spanish language culture.   Sr. Margaret started learning Spanish in her 90s in spite of her vision impairment. I visited Sr. Catherine next.   She told me she was learning how to use her new IPAD.   This was a birthday gift from her nephew “to stimulate her intellect.” She asked if I could show her how to take pictures and email them to her family so she could keep in touch with them.   As I walked her through each step, she would write them down. Sr. Catherine just celebrated her 100 th birthday in May. These two sisters are life long students and they share and use what they l...

I am writing this blog between the Solemnities of Ascension & Pentecost – between a promise and a gift.  At Christ’s Ascension, he promises us the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, will come to us.  At Pentecost, the Holy Spirit unleashes abundant gifts. Actually, these Solemnities remind us of this ongoing divine work of promise and gift of each day and in each breath.  We are always moving between the promise and the gift of God’s grace, the deeper DNA of the cosmic life force.  I am constantly reminded of these twin movements as I live my days of community, ministry, prayer, relationships, and, yes, the Dominican way of study. For the past nine months, with a few other sisters, I have accompanied one of our candidates as she joined us to study Dominican life.  In our mutual commitment to be present to each other, we were living out God’s work of promise and gift.  And we have had fun in the process.  In what ways have you experienced God’s prom...

I am in the last four months of a year of full-time study.   I have been writing a thesis relating to the unaccompanied minors who have been crossing our southern borders.   As a Dominican, I have not and cannot just sit behind a desk to study.   Twice during this past year, I have traveled to the borderlands to understand in a deeper way what these young people experience.   During these trips, I have sat in court rooms, hiked into the desert to migrant trails, and spent days welcoming these newcomers at a social service center.   My study has also sent me to a nearby parish where these unaccompanied minors now live with family members.   I have interviewed service providers and organized focus groups with the minors themselves. For the Dominican women of Sinsinawa, study is a way of life.   It happens everywhere we are and everywhere we go.   What we learn is that the mystery of God is unfolding. Study is actually not meant to make us smart...