Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Although autumn isn’t happening here in Texas yet, I know that up north fall has come with all its splendid colors.  I have often reflected how trees change their colors from the green of spring and summer to the golds, reds, and browns of fall, then let go of their leaves, one by one.  It’s a beautiful image of our life and death.   Fall is a season of letting go. This last week five of our sisters went home to God.  Each of them, Meg, Jessica, Philip Mary, Dorothea, and Pat, led wonderful lives of prayer and service.  Each of them was unique and reflected God’s image in different ways.  Each of them was loved.   So, as we are now in the process of saying goodbye to each of these lovely sisters, celebrating all the seasons of their lives, we thank God for each of them and rejoice at the many colors of their letting go.   LouAnne Willette, OP Austin, TX

It has been a struggle to find something uplifting to share in this blog. Although it is resurrection season, the news has been filled with excruciating stories of death and selfishness: the insurrection at the capital; 6 mass shootings since January;    3 million deaths world-wide from covid; the crisis at our southern border. But especially poignant and raw has been the agonizing murders of our black and brown siblings at the hands of law enforcement officers and other violent perpetrators.    How long will we tolerate these injustices? The sin of racism is imbedded deeply in our systems and institutions. But it can be uprooted with persistent and communal decisions and actions. Our Corporate Stance for Anti-Racism challenges us to show up and speak up in the presence of racism whenever it shows up where we are.    In this excerpt from the poem, “Here It Is!,” in her book,  Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart,  Alice Walker urges this further tran...

Last week I experienced two events:  the birth of Taylor and the death of Richard – God was busy that day because BOTH happened on the same day !  Taylor is the first grandchild of my friends Gail and Bill.   Richard was a prisoner in our Restorative Justice circle.  To begin a life, any life, is a miracle.  Both of these lives are extraordinary!  Taylor was born in the morning and Gail is my driver to the prisons I go to.  She is also a prison ministry volunteer, an artist and a teacher.  We were scheduled to go to prison that night but Taylor’s birth took precedence.   Gail always made a point of greeting every man in our circle by name !  When she greeted Richard he would say, “I don’t know if I’ll come back next week.”  She responded, “Then I won’t either!”  At the end of the 12 weeks Richard was both stunned and honored to be chosen by the other men to be their graduation speaker. Ruth Poochigian, O.P. M...

Lately I have been reflecting and reading about death. Some may find this topic somber and even morbid, personally it has not been.   As someone in full-time parish ministry, ever so often I have to celebrate someone's life through a funeral service. This is what we do when someone dies, we focus on their life and what it meant to the relatives, friends and acquaintances left behind. In her book 'Befriending Death', author Michelle O'Rourke states, that Henri Nouwen in his book 'Our Greatest Gift', says, "We have to befriend life and our purpose first, before we can embrace death." As I continue to reflect on my own life and also on the lives of my parents who are growing older, this message rings true to me. When I realize what my purpose is for being in this world and I am able to try to fulfill that purpose, death does not seem so scary. It is when I feel that I have wasted my one life on earth that death becomes scary. A new year means...

Luke 9:60, (“Let the dead bury the dead”) has always challenged me.   As I (and many) have struggled this past week with the loss of our dear friend and sister, Rose Marie Conway, and brother, Matt Walsh, OP, I wonder all the more how Jesus could be so callous in his response to the young man who simply wanted to bury his father before following Christ.   Seems reasonable and respectful.   It wasn’t until I heard today’s Gospel with a new set of ears that I grasped what Jesus might have meant.   In today’s reading, Jesus talks about God being a God of the living, rather than of the dead.   Our bodies, while holy, are merely vessels that carry the essence of our creation, our Spirit.   When the body stops functioning, it dies.   The spirit, the Divine spark in us, however, goes on living! God is still the God of Rose Marie and Matt ~ the God of the LIVING Rose Marie and Matt! And that is the Good News! Since I arrived at the novitiate in August,...

An experience I had recently shed light on an experience all of us will have some day.  I experienced the death of one of my classmates.  It was sobering because I suddenly had to face my own mortality!  At the same time it gave me a chance to reflect on that most meaningful encounter of any of our lives:  our readiness to meet God face to face!  What will it be like?  Will I be ready?  Will I be resistant?  Will I be fearful?  Will I be relieved? Spiritual writer Henri Nouwen once wrote, before his own death in 1996,  “ Am I afraid to die? I am every time I let myself be seduced by the noisy voices in my world telling me that my ‘little life’ is all I have and advising me to cling to it with all my might. But when I let these voices move to the background of my life and listen to that small soft voice calling me the Beloved, I know that there is nothing to fear and that dying is the greatest act of love, the act...