Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

  REALIZE DEEPLY THAT THE PRESENT MOMENT IS ALL YOU HAVE.  MAKE THE NOW THE PRIMARY FOCUS OF YOUR LIFE.       Eckhart Tolle COVID-19 has stolen so much from so many.  How many had an empty chair at the Thanksgiving Day table?  Who had to search for food or shelter this Thanksgiving because of the economic crisis this disease has brought upon us?  The Center for Disease Control tells us that long-standing systemic health and social inequities have put many people from racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk of getting sick and dying from COVID-19. This week begins Advent, the liturgical season in which our church joins together to wait for the coming anew of God in our midst.   It is such a struggle in our COVID-ridden world to wait for anything. Eckhart Tolle, spiritual guide and author, calls us to stay in the present moment.  All we have, he says, is the “now.”  Looking...

I live on the third floor and have a wide view of the Eastern horizon. Lately I have been setting my alarm for 5:45 a.m., just so that I can sit in that predawn darkness and just watch out my window for those first hints of light. It is a slow but spectacular process and different every dawn. Sometimes there is a great thin slash of orange that slowly widens and changes and casts light purples across dark grey clouds. So awesome each morning. Enough to get me out of a warm and comfy bed to sit sentinel by my window appreciating the quiet predawn anticipation of the new day.   So much promise. I sit at this edge, at the closing of the Liturgical year. I anticipate a Thanksgiving whose celebration will be like no other as we remain sheltering from the virus and I look forward to the beginning of Advent, the season of waiting. Seems like we have been waiting since March. What am I waiting for? I am waiting for the dawn. And I know It will come. I have already seen it.   What are ...

Birthdays and the end of the year for me is always a time of review and reflection of the year past and looking forward to new things in the year to come.   The year 2019 have been an exceptionally great year for me, in that my ministry challenges me to become a better version of myself.  I am in a ministry that I am passionate about, because hopefully I am making a difference in our archdiocese.  My ministry challenges me frequently to bring forth gifts I didn’t even know that I possessed.  I think it is truly ironic that a ministry, that at first, I didn’t want, I am now passionate about and I am told I am very good at it.  I tend to believe it when one of the persons is the archbishop among others who tell me this.  God really works in mysterious ways. Relationships are truly vital to me and to who I am as a person.  I lost one of my dearest friend and sister this year, she saw the good in me, she saw my gif...

How do you say “Thanksgiving”? “THANKSgiving” or “ThanksGIVING”? According to an article in  Mental Floss , if Thanksgiving, which is thoroughly an English word, actually behaved like an English word, the stress would be on the first syllable. (Think of words like SEAfaring, BABYsitting, HANDwriting, ALMSgiving, etc.) Linguist John McWhorter believes a shift to stressing the second syllable of Thanksgiving is reflective of the way our view of the holiday has shifted, that we “don’t truly think about Thanksgiving as being about thankfulness anymore.” I don’t know if I buy that…the word has always been “ThanksGIVING” for me and about gratitude. Maybe it’s a Midwestern thing.  However you pronounce it, Thanksgiving is about giving thanks for the grace and abundance in our lives. In these turbulent times, it’s often easy to overlook our abundance and focus on scarcity and what we think we need. I am reminded of this quote, attributed to a variety of people:...

What a strange series of days we’ve moved through: Thanksgiving Thursday; Black Friday; Shop Small Saturday; buy more on Sunday; Cyber Monday; Giving Tuesday. How ironic that “thanksgiving” and “giving” are the bookends on a series of days during which we are urged to buy, buy, and buy more. Both advertising and news coverage about these days create an image of US citizens as unthinking, out-of-control shoppers.   Consumerism – an ever-expanding consumption of goods – seems to be the primary purpose of our nation’s economy.   But what happens to those who do not have the money it takes “to buy, buy, and buy more?”   Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.   In the USA, 1 in 5 children live in poverty. More than thirty years ago, the Catholic Bishops in the US declared: “All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society. . . .It is wrong for a person or group to be excluded ...

For Dominicans, every day should be Thanksgiving Day.   We live in the gospel practice that all we have and all we need comes from God.   Our God offers us abundance everywhere we turn.   This grace comes with a huge invitation to offer to others this self-giving love of God.   We know that all we have and all we are is for others.   So, how do you live the spirit of Thanksgiving Day all year round?   Peggy Ryan, OP Casa Nona McGreal Waukegan, IL                

My Friday tweet for November 21 st :   #TGIF #Gratitude   For one minute name what you are grateful for - people, places, things, seen & unseen. Go! ~~Breathe In~Breathe Out~~ Even when life’s current happenings may be tough, there is always room for gratitude.   If you take up my challenge, I suspect that one minute won’t be enough time to even name the tip of the iceberg of what you are grateful for. Here are some of the “gratitudes” that came to me right now: by name - my Sisters, friends near and far, ministry colleagues, freedom to vote, those who come for spiritual direction, my spiritual director, places I have traveled to and the people I met there, and many other people, places…and at the end…chocolate! A lot can be named in 60 seconds. What will another minute bring? Already ideas flood my spirit. Gratitude is the work of the Holy Spirit. In the US, we celebrate Thanksgiving this week, so gratitude get a chance to be center stage.   Yet to ...

This is the season of giving thanks!!   On Saturday those of us who had been in membership ministry during the past twenty-six years gathered to honor and thank our secretary, (who was with us over all those years) Mary Ellen Schonhoff, as she retired.  Over those years, she knew all of the women who were welcomed into the congregation during those years while also working with 50 of us who were involved in the ministry!  That’s a lot of people!! It was touching to hear and read the many tributes to Mary Ellen in the memory book that the current Relationships for Mission team put together – that’s what membership ministry is known as today in our congregation.   Through it all, the many changes in name and personnel Mary Ellen was gracious and present to every person.   She understood that this ministry is about relationship and held the office together over all those years. Ritualizing significant moments in our lives is important.  How have yo...

In the US, November causes us to notice “thanksgiving.”   If we are reflective, we notice it is not only about one day and special meals with family and friends. This month I have “noticed” several spirituality sites focusing on gratitude as well as friends posting their own thoughts or quotes of others on facebook. Dominican mystic of the 13 th century, Meister Eckhart, says:   “If the only prayer we ever say is:   Thank you – it is enough!”   Among my noticings this month is that Thanksgiving Day and the beginning of Hanukkah are the same date.   I am thinking a lot about my interfaith connections and especially those of the Jewish tradition with whom I have worked to bring understanding, friendship and dialogue among many faith traditions.   I am grateful for these friends and colleagues. Among the quotes I have read on facebook was one that went something like this:   “Gratitude brings joy to the heart…”   I find this to be a truth ...