Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

My journey started with a determination to respond to God’s call. I would follow the steps and see if doors would open to a Black woman requesting membership. I would follow all the steps and if the doors did not open, I could say with a clean heart, God I tried. I requested to experience living in “community” that was granted. I lived a semester with sisters and experienced their prayer life, daily routines, celebrations, house meetings, ministries, and concerns. We became family together.     When I asked to start the entrance process the answer was yes and the rest is history.   There is not only room for sisters of color, but also a need for representation of sisters of color in religious life.   Pat Rogers, OP Glendale, WI

When I was in first grade in Oak Park, IL, I was first attracted to the Dominican Sisters who lived across the street because of their smiling faces and cheerful dispositions. These attitudes continued inside the classroom and beyond. It occurred to me that the joy that came from those sisters may have been a sign of God’s call to me. 60 some years later, here I am! I stayed this long because, no matter what has happened in my personal or communal life, that joy never diminished. Mary Margaret Pazdan, OP

Three of us made up a local community for a number of years. Just recently  we became four of us.  The three of us left a residence in which we formed  community in order to join another sister who  now is able to live in the parish  house where she works. How do I find all the things that I brough t with me  in boxes?     How do we form a new community?    Prayer together is important.    Meals together are important.    In both prayer  and celebration, we meet  those that each of us has met as we have gone to  the places where God called us—                    o     The homeless person who came to the bookstore o    The sister/brother ill with cancer     o    The young person in the prayer group at prison, who was sentenced for life o    The friend whose relative just died o ...

Perhaps you are familiar with the poet, Mary Oliver. She died a few months ago and it was only then I found out she lived a few miles north of me in South Florida. On Ash Wednesday I gave a day of reflection in which I include her poem:   The Summer Day .  The last line is:  “Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” The title for this blog entry is how I adapted her words as those of us gather as Lent began.  This is the only Lent we have in 2019.  How did those present and how are you, using your one wild and precious Lent? I have long ago stopped using Lent to give up chocolate.  Rather, I am pondering how  wild   (God’s gift of free will) and  precious   (this very moment – every moment) is my life and all life including the earth’s.  I am listening to God’s call to the next action I am to take. Recently, that happened when participating in a congregati...

Two and a half years ago while I was in parish ministry as the parish administrator of New Grant parish, after serving for four and a half years I felt that God was calling me out of that ministry to something new.  Keeping in mind I never wanted to be parish administrator in the first place. However, it was what God wanted for my life at that time.  I must say those four and a half years turned out to be the best years of my life! They were also the toughest years of my life!  However, the growth spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and relationally was amazing. I met some of the best people and they are still like my family up to today. Coming to the end of my time in the parish and having announced it to them, I remember one young person asking me why I had to leave, since I was doing so much for him and the young people in the parish and environs.  I told him that I felt that God was calling me to something more. T...

In a little over two months, I will be making perpetual profession of vows as a Dominican Sister of Sinsinawa. Some have asked how ‘perpetual’ vows and ‘final’ vows differ. Technically, they don’t. Final and perpetual can mean the same thing. In reality, for me, there is a big difference in the sound, meaning, and intentionality of those words.   One definition of ‘final’ is “finishing, end, terminating”. (Kaput!) On the other hand, one definition of ‘perpetual’ is “never ending or changing”. (A fidelity to discernment.) For me, ‘final’ is harsh and linear in comparison to ‘perpetual’, which seems more integrated and whole, representing a dynamic and ongoing conversation with God, rather than, “At last, I’ve reached my goal. I’m outta here!” I think we are each called to live perpetually, rather than finally, to be constantly attuned to nuances in God’s voice, to where God is calling us, to what God is calling us, and to how God is calling us to do it…to how God is ca...

"How are you going?" People asked when I lived in Trinidad and Tobago.   "How has your week been?" A person asked today hoping to make conversation. "Where has God called you this week?" Is not often asked, but it is good for reflection as we come to the end of a week.  For me?              •    To mourn with one whose husband had recently died.              •    To plan with a pastor in how to share the social gospel, but also have compassion toward those who do not share his passion for justice.              •    To be a peaceful presence in a moment of controversy at a board meeting.              •    To listen to one whose almost adult daughter is trapped in mental illness. So how has God called you  this week?  We might see how these calls fit the "blesseds" we heard J...

I recently attended the wake of a friend’s father, where I ran into several other friends whom I had not seen for a while.   Laughing while swapping stories, one who knew I was newly professed said to another, ‘See, I told you she wouldn’t have changed”, to which I replied, “I might be a Sister but I’m still the same person!” As I drove away from the funeral home, my response echoed rather hollowly in my heart, a sure sign that it wasn’t exactly the truth.   Our essence is of God.   That doesn’t change, yet there is no denying that how I am in the world now does look and feel different…much like a rose bud in the early morning differs from one in full bloom in the late afternoon sun.   While each is still a rose, one is opened more fully to what it was meant to become. Religious life is one of the many ways God might call a person to be in the world.   Prayerful discernment of and responding to that call has opened my heart more fully and led to so man...