Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

These are challenging and disturbing times to say the least.     Perhaps you have felt concerned and overwhelmed by all that is happening in our world.     The list is long:     too many wars on many fronts, our planet is in critical condition, so many immigrants needing a new place to call home, frightening virulent health issues worldwide and government disruptions in countless countries.     Here at home, we have our democracy teetering and people of various faiths strongly critical of each other.   Recently I was introduced to a ‘new’ song by our Dominican brother, Jim Marchionda, OP entitled ‘Become What We Pray’ and all of this angst began to settle, and I felt an inkling of hope.  It is a beautiful song, and you can go on  You Tube  to listen to it.  There are several hopeful phrases.  ‘When Believers truly practice what we pray’, is one of the lines that spoke to me.  I again realize t...

One of my favorite spiritual writers is Dorothee Soelle.   Thinking about winter, weather, the cold, the angst and suffering in our world, I came across a line from her book,   The Silent Cry.     In this work she writes that amazement includes ‘a bleak side of terror   and   hope’. She muses that: ‘This ability for wonderment brings about consenting to amazement and is a way of praising.’ These juxtapositions move me outside of the ‘gray’ and invite me to really hear longing to be part of the whole from an immigrant knocking at the door of our border.  I hear awe and wonder in the yearning with the call for voting rights for all in our nation and in our countries as well.   One small Washington town received three feet of snow in one day this month. What a climate change statement! Those who came to help dig this village out brought their hunger to serve and their shovels were praising!  What amazes you these days? What m...

These days of national, global, environmental upheaval are a challenge for me. Yes, some days the messiness of life can be challenging and very disconcerting.  It is an invitation for me to lean into where I feel rooted.  It is there where I need to breathe.   First, I lean into gratitude.  Where is it pulsating around or within me? I take hope in the witness and the work of my vowed sisters.  Look at what good work they are doing down at the border with our ‘southern’ sisters and brothers.  Or note the teaching that is happening with young children.  Can I  hear the compassion and empathy spoken to our service to the elderly? Whether in Bolivia, Trinidad or Washington, DC, who is speaking truth to power? Meditation, mindfulness, contemplation is also salve to this messiness.  It is before the Holy that I learn . . .                   "to hold...