Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

“Practice” – how many times as kids were we told how important it was to practice if we wanted to learn something new!  From piano scales to riding a two-wheeler, from driving a car in the church parking lot to secretly learning new dance moves in our bedrooms, we all had to learn that it took a lot of practice to truly master something we cared about.   We also well remember the tasks or skills we didn’t practice, because we just didn’t care about them! So now we come to this time of an upside down world, where we are called to practice the holy intangibles of patience, charity, and faith in the unknown as well as the personal challenges of self-control and self-discipline.  Probably the best admonition for this season of both Easter and the pandemic is a line from a poem by Wendell Berry:  “ Be joyful, though   you have considered all the facts.  Practice resurrection.”   How we practice  that  is a life-long task, I believe, ...

Easter is such a tender day.  Children remember the eggs and chocolate bunnies, but as we mature we learn that Easter begins with remembering death and suffering before we remember forgiveness, mercy, new life and love. Today I am remembering my Polish Grandma, Magdalene. Who came to the US with adopted parents, her own parents having died in a flu epidemic.   Sometimes I would sit with her for afternoon coffee.   Of course, we always had a cookie or a piece of cake to share as well.   She taught the art of welcoming.   “It doesn’t matter what you have, always treat the visitor with kindness.   If all you have to offer is a piece of bread and a cup of coffee, offer that,” she would say. Our community has been so blessed to welcome to our house, not far from where Grandma and I shared coffee—people from China, Peru, and Colombia, --people of Lakota, Navaho, and Mohican nations, people who are African American, Turkish, and of course people like ours...

So, I had the students who came on retreat dream about a world where peace prevailed.  What might that world look like?  And they, with crayons and colored pencils began to create that world together.  In their world they did not litter, they shared their snacks with each other, they went to church and some even spent time meditating in beautiful natural surroundings!  In the discussion that followed these 12-year-old kids came to understand that peace takes some doing! That peace began with each of them, one small act of peace at a time.  They recognized that they had to leave behind old habits that did not bring peace and begin to form new habits of love, care and consideration for themselves, for earth, for each other and for God who is our peace.  The reality of Easter with its renewed hope and promise of new life, of deep peace and joy, takes us beyond the violence and hatred around us, to a place where we can dare to dream of a different re...

This is my second attempt at blogging and I wish to share today a very special experience I had over the Easter weekend.  My brother, John, is a priest for the Sioux City Diocese and has always worked in small parishes in rural Iowa.  After 46 years of ministry, he will be retiring.  Saturday, I drove to Wall Lake, Iowa where my family gathered to celebrate this occasion.  John and I are less than a year apart in age and we grew up like Irish Twins. There were six children in our family and we were blessed with loving parents and a marvelous education by the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters.  Both John and I began our religious vocations right after high school and I celebrated my final vows at his first Mass. The prayer card that we created for this occasion expressed our hopes. Dark and cold we may be, but this is no winter now. The frozen misery of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move; the thunder is the thunder of the floes, the thaw, the flood, the upst...

The summer of 2014 Daesh (ISIS) swept through the northern part of Iraq.   Dominicans Sisters and Friars, fleeing with their neighbors, have done heroic ministry among their people even as they suffer their own displacement. For this blog entry I am sharing a portion of the Easter letter from the Prioress of the Iraqi Dominican Sisters sent to me and others here in the US.   She writes: "... As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man…and they were alarmed. "Don't be alarmed," he said. "He has risen! He is not here." Mark 16: 5-6   Dear Sisters, Brethren and Friends,   It is great to hear the good news about Jesus’ resurrection. But if we were to think about the place from where the good news is announced, we would be a bit surprised. The women came into the tomb, and they saw a young man sitting there. Important things happen inside the tomb.   The community that announce the good news is surprisingly in the tomb. The sam...

One of the challenges of our American culture is sustaining attention to what is slow moving or thinking something is over when it has only begun.   The Easter Season is one of those times in our liturgical church calendar that is hardly noticed by most of us. There is Easter Sunday – with all the trimmings – whatever that may mean for parish communities, families, vowed religious, etc.   But once the sun sets on that Sunday, am I – are we – noticing the season we are in? It is during the Easter Season we hear readings from the Acts of the Apostles – considered part 2 of St Luke’s writings.   I appreciate this New Testament book because it is the story of us – of our beginning as church. Even so, I need more than this one book of scripture to keep me focused and all the unfolding of this season.   In some of the eastern Christian churches people greet one another with this exchange:   “Christ is Risen” with the response: “He is Risen indeed.”   While...

I am responding to Peggy Ryan’s question in her recent posting.  Where have you found Easter?  Like Peggy, we are seeing the inauguration of spring in our southwest Wisconsin area.   We are finally viewing green grass, a few brave flowers, and the very beginning of wispy green on trees.   But I really found Easter in a movie I saw on Holy Saturday – Heaven Is for Real.   In the midst of our current world where the nightly news tells us of one horrific story after another, suffering without end, this was a movie filled with Easter hope.   I witnessed an average family and community experiencing the Pascal mystery.   The gradual revelation of the encounter of a four-year-old child with heaven both challenged their faith and gave them the opportunity to leave behind their fear & pain and to accept incredible peace.     Isn’t that what Jesus tells us in the Gospel stories again and again, “Fear not” and “Peace I leave with you.” ...

Spring is coming very slowly to our Midwest city in Southeast Wisconsin.  Seeing spring takes a huge act of faith right now.  These little buds are a sure sign that hope is all we need.  Hearing spring is easier because the birds obviously know more than we do.  They are making new songs everywhere.    The tomb is open and empty.  Christ is risen!!!  The newness has begun.  All we have to do is open our hearts and eyes and trust in the resurrected presence of our brother and friend, the Christ. Where are you finding Easter?  Is it in a seemingly impossible situation with a family member?  Is it in a person or place that you would have never looked for anything good to happen?  Is it in a broken-down promise?  Is it in an ending that you must face and really do not want to?    Let’s look together this year.  Let’s help each other find Easter everywhere we can.  T...