Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I have a cartoon drawing on my desk that serves as my reality check.  A straight black line goes across the paper with A at the starting dot and B at the end.  But also found at the A starting point is a different line with color and texture – one that loops and twists and swoops and crosses and recrosses that nice neat straight line – and when  that  line ends at the B dot  it has spelled out the word “LIFE.”  Why do I persist in thinking all my efforts and prayers and projects and plans can or should only work the straight line way I envision them when I start out at A?  What keeps me from enjoying – or even celebrating --  the loops and swoops and crisscrossing – instead of seeing them as obstacles or unwelcome detours?  This Easter season calls us to see the LIFE of the Risen Christ in our own lifelines. This Easter season reminds us of the call to constant conversion and not immovable certainty - aka a ...

It was an ordinary event, a village wedding, one where everyone knew everyone else and no one expected any surprises, just a good time and some decent wine.  Except that wedding at Cana, told by the writer of John’s gospel, was far from ordinary, for Mary, for Jesus, for the wine steward, for the happy couple who pleased their guests beyond expectation – and for us.  Although we call this liturgical season “Ordinary Time” do we need to adjust our vision, our thinking, our attitude to see   beyond   what is right in front of us, to see   into   what is right in front of us, to see with the heart? Can our faith help our vision not to be completely obscured by covid exhaustion, mask frustration, absent friends and family, economic struggle – the list could go on and on.  Mary says to the steward, “Do whatever he tells you.”  We must interpret that line, that mandate, for ourselves, in our ordinary events, our time.  Love, patience, risk taking, ...

During this Lenten season this year, I have been focusing on Conversion – turning around, looking at a life situation from a different perspective, moving on.   I’ve seen several different examples, some in surprising circumstances.   For example, I viewed one of my favorite classic movies on TCM network recently – National Velvet .   It is the story of a teenage girl, played by twelve-year-old Elizabeth Taylor, who believed a rogue horse she won in a lottery could win the Grand National.   At the end of the movie, her mother, a very wise woman, told Velvet she was proud of her because she recognized that she had pursued her dream, but now knew it was time to move on.   There is a season.   If you’ve never seen this movie, it’s worth a trip to the local library or Netflix to find the DVD.   There are multiple examples of conversion in the movie. Watching the NCAA tournament this past weekend I realized that 68 teams and coaches began the jou...

  In the liturgical calendar, January 25 is the feast for “the Conversion of St. Paul the Apostle.”   I always wonder why it’s not called the “Conversion of Saul into Paul”  because he certainly wasn’t a saint at the time he was knocked off his horse on the road to Damascus (though there is dispute about the horse) by a light and a voice that pierced his heart and mind.    That illumination and call reversed everything he thought he knew and believed.   He truly couldn’t be the same person after that encounter.   Our conversions are seldom so dramatic, but the experience of an encounter of the holy, of holy mystery, is life changing.   It might take much more time than it seemed to take Paul; it might take months, years, for us to process our understanding of the call in our lives, of being able to look at the pattern of the holy in our lives and see a path that leads to new insight and above all, change.   And it can be scary because ...

Do you remember the book Dead Man Walking ?   Or you might have seen the movie that was made, starring Susan Sarandon (who got the Oscar that year) and Sean Penn.   About ten years ago it was made into an opera!   It recently was performed where I lived, and there were many (free) public events for almost two months leading up to the performance.   In the couple of days prior to the opening of the opera here Sister Helen Prejean (who wrote the book), longtime Catholic activist, who speaks often about her own conversion regarding the death penalty, was in Madison.   She and Jake Heggie, the composer of the opera, spoke to about 800 people at First Congregational UCC.   Helen talked about her own conversion – which began when she finally understood that the Jesus of the Gospels went about doing justice , not just being kind to people.   (And in the case of the first man she accompanied to his death he was clearly guilty !) In this country it...