Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I have a cartoon drawing on my desk that serves as my reality check.  A straight black line goes across the paper with A at the starting dot and B at the end.  But also found at the A starting point is a different line with color and texture – one that loops and twists and swoops and crosses and recrosses that nice neat straight line – and when  that  line ends at the B dot  it has spelled out the word “LIFE.”  Why do I persist in thinking all my efforts and prayers and projects and plans can or should only work the straight line way I envision them when I start out at A?  What keeps me from enjoying – or even celebrating --  the loops and swoops and crisscrossing – instead of seeing them as obstacles or unwelcome detours?  This Easter season calls us to see the LIFE of the Risen Christ in our own lifelines. This Easter season reminds us of the call to constant conversion and not immovable certainty - aka a ...

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...