Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

At the beginning of 2021 unlike other years, I did not bother to make any resolutions.  As I thought that my main goal this year was ‘operation surviving COVID-19.’  My thinking at the time was what is the point of resolutions or goals in a time of COVID-19.  I must say that this way of thinking has changed for me as I have come to make some semblance of peace with the fact that COVID-19 will be here for at least the rest of this year or more.  Does that mean that I put my life on hold and not work on the areas I need to grow in and not to set the goals that I need to achieve?  Well of course not!   COVID-19 to me has been the great eye opener.  It has helped underlined to me the importance of relationships, the importance of something as big or small as a touch or a hug.  I am a hugger.  I can hug strangers and it is not a problem.  I miss hugging.  Unfortunately for me and other li...

In a previous blog posting, I mentioned a Study Circle that was formed to embrace and walk with one of our newest members in the Congregation.   The next topic of study is Community – one of the four pillars of our life.   The others are prayer, study, and ministry.   During the preparation for this week’s gathering, I contemplated both the materials provided for our study and my own experiences of having lived in communities.   Many nuggets of wisdom regarding community were quoted in the study materials, but the one that most resonated with me was an article from our Constitution which says: “ When values and goals are held in common, gifts nurtured, mistakes forgiven,  and when persons are consistently and warmly loved, we grow together toward  the ideal set forth by Fr. Samuel [our founder].” Reflecting upon that statement, I realized that this is truly my experience of life-giving communities; and like you, I have had many engagements ...

Here we are again at the beginning of another new year.  This year I decided to upgrade how I make and most importantly keep my resolutions/goals and so far except for one it seems to be working. I started off as usual by making my list of resolutions and then thinking to myself what do I need to do differently this year to make sure that all my resolutions or goals are achieved, hopefully, before the end of 2017.   This time I have decided it is about the journey and not so much the destination.   Meaning that I am not so much looking at the end results, but concentrating on how I am doing each day on every resolution/goal that I have made. I am being more mindful of the people and things that I experience in my daily life.   I am enjoying the everyday seemingly simple things in life that I so often take for granted.   Usually when the year comes to an end, most times it is very difficult to know what I have done or achieved. This year already ho...

I felt that the beginning of the month of March and also the start of Lent was a great time to review my 2014 goals.  Out of my approximately six goals, I was partially succeeding in about two and a half.  I thought to myself, "Lystra, time to step it up in the goals department girl!"   In my earlier years I never liked the idea of New Year's resolution/goals, however, as I grew older I began to feel the need to have them.  In recent years I have succeeded in about two resolutions, however that has not hindered my perseverance. These goals are always about growing in mind, body and spirit.  Am I balance and healthy in these three areas? It is about how can I become a better human being and how can I grow spiritually and live a healthy life. I think it is good to have something I can work towards, because for me this is what life is about.  It is about becoming who I was meant to be.  Having goals I believe assist me in working on what is i...