Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

My son did a bit of ‘guerrilla gardening’ in Iowa City some years ago, planting a variety of plants and seeds in what was once a trash-strewn concrete slab next to an alley. Acorn squash grew up the chain link fence separating this ‘plot’ from a transforming station. Neighborhood residents and passersby were fed. An older brother had a pumpkin vine growing in a crack between his concrete driveway and the side steps to his house. The vine bore fruit. In New Orleans, I remember seeing beautiful oak trees upheave sidewalks to continue their growth. Today, March 14, signals the end of Catholic Sisters Week, a week highlighting the vocational call to vowed religious life. Honest, intentional discernment in the company of supportive communities may lead a woman to vowed religious life or it may lead her to another vocation, another relationship altogether. Each of us is called to bear good fruit. Discernment is a lifetime call to listen to the voice of God. When we do that with trust and fai...

I believe we've been living a COVID Lent for over a year and counting.   Locked down. Restricted. Masked, and socially distant.   After some thought, I realized, we are much like my hardy garden veggies.  Transplanted from garden to pot. Placed in a greenhouse and covered in a mask of cloth.  The subzero temperatures like Covid threaten.  However all they request is to be watered!   Lent is about greening, being watered, replenished. This Lent let's treat ourselves to a good watering. Yes TREAT ourselves. Turning ourselves inside out, to expose our Winter/ Lenten growth. Will Community, friends, church, world see our greening and be changed by our example?   We, like my veggies, are all Covid transplants. Don't forget to water. Treat yourself. Our growth is already visible!   Caroline Sullivan, OP DePere, WI

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...

Two and a half years ago while I was in parish ministry as the parish administrator of New Grant parish, after serving for four and a half years I felt that God was calling me out of that ministry to something new.  Keeping in mind I never wanted to be parish administrator in the first place. However, it was what God wanted for my life at that time.  I must say those four and a half years turned out to be the best years of my life! They were also the toughest years of my life!  However, the growth spiritually, emotionally, intellectually and relationally was amazing. I met some of the best people and they are still like my family up to today. Coming to the end of my time in the parish and having announced it to them, I remember one young person asking me why I had to leave, since I was doing so much for him and the young people in the parish and environs.  I told him that I felt that God was calling me to something more. T...

One joy of blogging on Catherine’s Café is reflecting on the other blogs.   So here goes it! Have you participated in any cultural exchanges lately? I enjoyed celebrating the 5 th anniversary of a local pastor, who not only is a great preacher, but also a recently elected judge in juvenile court. “Children must not be shackled when they come to this court!” he recently declared. The pastor who gave the sermon at the event is another great preacher, who preached that the preacher also must heal his/herself of his/her own pain and sin.   “Preach till the chains fall off! He proclaimed in his black preaching cadence with his Lutheran pastor soul. How are you aware of God's presence in your life? As I participated in the above service, I let the beat of the drums and the harmony of the hymns penetrate my heart and soul.   (I am not good at clapping and so my body kept still).   But God was there.   It was a God moment as I sat there 2.5 miles from whe...

…after nearly 47 years living in Dominican community:  people do their best! What do I mean?   All of us were called by God.  To do what?  Whatever needed to be done!   I was a high school teacher of religion for ten years.  I went to summer school during those years to learn more about my faith.  Then I discovered that my students were learning things that their parents didn’t know.  So I pursued a degree in adult education, and used it in Des Moines, Iowa, Milwaukee and for the congregation. All that time I lived in Dominican communities, where I was supported in my growth –  as a woman, as a teacher, as a learner, as a sister. Who has supported your growth over the years?   Ruth Poochigian, O.P. Madison WI