Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I believe with all my being I was called by God to Religious life and to a life of prayer. Prayer has always been a regular/consistent part of my life.  As I got older prayer became what I desired, not what I should or ought to do. I favored published prayers for a while and overtime an intimate prayer life developed. My Grandmother was a great spontaneous prayer, so I borrowed some of her phrases and made them mine.   I believe my prayers are conversations with God therefore, I look/wait for a response. Sometime the response is a change in attitude, a feeling of calm or questions.    I believe God’s call was not only a call to Religious life but also an invitation to a closer relationship with God.  My prayer life has grown as a Sinsinawa Dominican and my relationship with God continues to grow through daily prayer.    Pat Rogers, OP Glendale, WI

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

My son did a bit of ‘guerrilla gardening’ in Iowa City some years ago, planting a variety of plants and seeds in what was once a trash-strewn concrete slab next to an alley. Acorn squash grew up the chain link fence separating this ‘plot’ from a transforming station. Neighborhood residents and passersby were fed. An older brother had a pumpkin vine growing in a crack between his concrete driveway and the side steps to his house. The vine bore fruit. In New Orleans, I remember seeing beautiful oak trees upheave sidewalks to continue their growth. Today, March 14, signals the end of Catholic Sisters Week, a week highlighting the vocational call to vowed religious life. Honest, intentional discernment in the company of supportive communities may lead a woman to vowed religious life or it may lead her to another vocation, another relationship altogether. Each of us is called to bear good fruit. Discernment is a lifetime call to listen to the voice of God. When we do that with trust and fai...

As I was trying to decide on what to write for this blog my mind took to me to the book some of us sisters are presently reading. Ted Dunn’s book,   Graced Crossroads .     In his book Ted writes about religious life today in U.S women congregations.     Ted shares about the “Great Turning.”     In one chapter in which he is considering all that is happening and changing in the world today.     In the book he examines how U.S. women religious congregations are fearing and are they going to survive or not with all the challenges they are facing today.     I see religious life like a living and breathing organic system that is an organization and like many organisms it goes through various changes and how it handles those changes will decide if it survives, dies, or thrive.     This living organism goes through mountain tops and valley experiences.     Now we appear to be in a valley experience.     What ...

The song that best describes my call to religious life is   Amazing Grace . I never felt I had a call to religious life, despite some Ursuline and Dominican Sisters having suggested it to me. So how did I end up here?  First, I had started a novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help because they always did that novena at my church, Holy Names in Omaha, NE.  My intention in making the novena had nothing to do with discerning religious life but was to ask for help in finding me a job because I was just graduating from college at the University of Omaha with a degree in Home Economics and a minor in Education. I was praying to the Blessed Mother to help me find an appropriate job.  As I waited for the bus to “the U”, a young man passed me at the bus stop. He could see that I was going to the University, and I could see by the stack of books in his car that he was, too. He offered me a ride so I wouldn’t have to take the bus. One morning, he had his car radio on, and I...

A song that represents my call to religious life:  “God has chosen me…”Without God’s call, I wouldn’t be here.   cf; God’s call to Samuel (1 Samuel 3). Listen and respond.    Geri Kline, OP

At my Golden Jubilee (50 years of professed life), I realized, “I’m going to be here a while!” I was happy and my heart was at ease. When I made my first profession, I was a little nervous. For me, the best part of religious life is that I am never alone. This year, I am celebrating my 60 th   anniversary of the profession of my vows! Elaine Taylor, OP

  “Whatsoever you do to the lest of these you have done to me.” Matt. 35 “Yours are the hands through which Christ blesses all the world. ...Christ has no body now on earth but yours.” Teresa of Avila I have tried to live out my religious life following these two quotes, realizing they are addressed to lay folks as well. In 100 years from now, I hope people will remember the Sinsinawa Dominicans for doing this, responding to the needs of the day with courage and love, strengthened by living the 4 pillars of the Dominican order (prayer, study, community and mission) and knowing that we have each other's back. Stella Storch, OP

Tomorrow, Saturday February 2nd, is  World Day for Consecrated Life.  In 1997, Pope Saint John Paul II instituted a day of prayer for women and men in consecrated life. This celebration is attached to the Feast of the Presentation of the Lord on February 2nd. This Feast is also known as Candlemas Day; the day on which candles are blessed symbolizing Christ who is the light of the world. So, too, those in consecrated life are called to reflect the light of  Jesus Christ to all peoples.  We invite you over the next few days to celebrate the joy of religious life by sharing a story of a sister who inspired you!

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...

We don’t often think of putting the words “laughter” and “holy” together – at least I don’t!  Sometimes people assume as a sister-in-training I must be very serious.  In fact, in my experience of religious life, joy and laughter are central.  Recently, a sister shared a memory from her college professor days: a student, overhearing the loud laughter of sisters, exclaimed how much fun they were having while he was stuck in his room studying!  And, yes, she laughed as she told me that story. From another sister, I learned about a tradition I’d never heard of: the risus paschalis (Easter Laugh).   Homilists would tell jokes in their Easter Sunday preaching to make the assembly laugh all together – a welcome change after solemn weeks of Lent. Some sources say that the ancient practice of the Easter Laugh symbolizes the Resurrection’s triumph over evil.   Like the bells, flowers, water, and fire that are used during the fifty days of the Easter seaso...

Recently I was asked to do a reflection on Mary, the listening virgin. As I pondered what I would say I reflected on how much our society today needs good listeners who show respect for the person speaking. It seems almost everyone has an opinion and expresses it, sometimes shamelessly, on social media—often what is said is degrading and hateful. Are they really listening to one another? Yesterday a woman came to my office saying she didn’t think anyone cared about her; no one loved her—she didn’t even think God loved her. She felt very alone. What could I do; what could I say? I listened to her and reminded her that God loved her into existence and will never stop loving her. We prayed together and she left. I don’t know what I did for her, but I knew she needed someone to listen to her. Maybe she needed the reminder that God loved her, but she didn’t need my advice nor did she need me to resolve her angst. I listened; was that enough? I hope so. It has been said that we have...

Recently, I was reminded that June has been designated as “LGBT Awareness Month” in the USA.   This caused me to recall one of the many things that I learned during my years of work in Native American communities. Before colonization by Europeans, persons who were gender variant (the male female; the female male) were called “two-spirited” in many Native American cultures. Usually, such persons were valued because they were blessed with two spirits, both male and female. Two-spirited people were often the visionaries, the medicine persons, the nannies of orphans and the caregivers. With colonization (along with a particular interpretation of Christianity), two-spirited persons increasingly lost their respected place in indigenous communities. Our Catholic Church teaches that all persons are created in the Divine image and, therefore, have inherent dignity.   Pope Francis, in his recent document, Amoris Laetitia , applied this teaching when he reminded us, “We would like b...