Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Yesterday, at a gathering of some members of my crowd – current and former, I was truly overcome with sheer joy and gratitude at being together and experiencing again the goodness of these women I have known and loved for so many years. As we shared stories, I was so moved at how we have not been afraid of the kinds of questions posed by Liz Sully in her preaching on this Sunday’s gospel.  What's our heart quotient? How's the hosting of love going? Where are we serving up compassion? Are we really present to the wounds, our own and others? What's our healing touch availability? Is the listening ear in desperate need of hearing aid? Where are we exercising the power of the word, individually and communally? How is justice in action being manifest?   Today I continue the celebration of gratitude that began yesterday. Before I climbed out of bed this morning, I said to myself the words of e.e. cummings, the only poem I know entirely by heart: “I thank you God for most this ama...

Last week I had the privilege of being with our Sister Marie Lee in her last days here on earth.   She was 98 years old and spent 71 of those years as a vowed Sinsinawa Dominican Sister.   In her active years of ministry she was a teacher, a band leader, a founder of a sewing program for Hmong immigrants, a spiritual guide and mentor to many women.   Having been given the gift of a long life, she spent the last years of her life in contemplation.   She read the current spiritual books on the “new cosmology” and willingly shared her deep insight into this new understanding of God in the Universe.      When one of the nurses asked, how she as a nurse could achieve her tranquility and peace?   Sister Marie responded, “By being yourself.”   This reminded me of EE Cummings poem To be nobody but yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day,            ...