Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Have you ever after facing a challenging situation in your life in retrospect realized that it had helped you to grow and shaped you into a better person?  It assisted you on the journey of finding the true you? We the Sinsinawa Dominicans believe at the heart of ministry is relationship.  This became a reality for me while being the parish administrator at New Grant R.C. parish.  It was through the challenges of that ministry for four and a half years that assisted in shaping me into who I have become today.   It was through my daily interaction with all types of people, people I was expected to love and through various life situations that required me to lead by example.  I literally had to practice what I had preached on weekends and it was far from easy!Without those experiences my faith and ability to love and forgive would not have been tested.  My prayer life would not have been tested and strengthen.  My relationship with Jesus Chr...

This lent I found myself with the happy task of retreating 5-11 year old students.  Class by class I welcomed them, a total of over 500 boys and girls!    I taught them about prayer and with the different levels I did a different type of prayer.  As we prayed they shared their lives with me.  The five year old boys prayed for things like fireman trucks, iPads and cellphones!  The six to seven year olds prayed for help in their studies, and one for his father to get the money to finish building his home.  The 8- 9 year olds  praised and thanked God for their families, and refreshingly, for the environment, for oxygen and for their hearts, their lungs and their brains. The 10 -11 year olds asked forgiveness for lying, kicking each other, not listening or paying attention and for calling each other names, among other little 'transgressions!'  For all of them a highlight was making a prayer flower on the petals of which they wrote their ...

These days I am so taken up with my studies that finding time to fit in my other responsibilities has been a bit of a stretch.  I seem to be consumed by it.  So much 'dense' literature, which I have to read over and over to really get it!   As demanding as it has been on my time however, I love study and I am grateful for how it has deepened and broadened my perspective on life.  And actually, some of it has been fun and easy reading too.  But I am also very aware of deep truths that I have learned along the way that have come, not from books but from allowing myself to be consumed with life and with life's experiences, taking a long look at them and distilling out of them the essence of what makes for good, meaningful, honest, holy and just living and loving.  From way back St. Dominic saw the importance of study and contemplation so that we, as members of the Order of Preachers can be more credible witnesses to Truth as...

Here in Trinidad we had been having a really hot, dry, ‘Dry season’ and then last week it began to rain. Weather forecasters warned that it was not really the ‘Rainy season’ yet but.. who cares? It is raining and the dry, parched lawns are sprouting green once more. Beneath all the dryness, life continued just waiting for the rain. Isn’t that what life is like? We struggle through our own personal dry seasons when we feel like a plant withering in the heat..we struggle to collect whatever life-giving moisture we can find, so we can hold our heads up like the beautiful dry season flowers.. Then, when we least expect it, the rain begins.  How have you experienced this in your life? There was a time when lots and lots of young women wanted to give their lives to God and headed off to convents and monasteries. Today there are not so many. But there are some, and their lives bring joy to us…like our own Sr. Priscilla who made final vows recently. A Dominican mo...