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 hundred years from now, I hope people will remember this about our community: We were people who spent our lives advocating for the rights of women, people of color, native peoples, immigrants... all the while treating each person we encountered with profound dignity.   Carol Fox, OP

I recently spent a week at the Texas border.  For two days I worked at the Catholic Charities Respite Center in McAllen. Together with lots of other volunteers, we took care of the needs of 20-50 asylum seekers who had been cleared for travel to reunite families in the U.S.   The really big work was about Matamoros, where over 2000 asylum seekers, mostly families, were living in tents, waiting for court dates in the U.S.  Three times that week a group of us, wearing matching t-shirts, loaded cars and vans with collapsible wagons, sandwiches assembled by McAllen volunteers, milk, diapers, wipes and other supplies.  We drove to Brownsville where we unloaded everything and put the supplies into the wagons, which we then pulled across the international bridge.  We set up tables and distributed everything, including the empty gallon milk jugs. After that we had the opportunity to visit. Most of the people were from Central America and thei...

Living a Gospel centered life as a Dominican sister I find myself working with women and men struggling to integrate into the community by learning English and then passing a civics test to become a US citizen. I am honored to accompany them as they struggle to learn new vocabulary and a new history.  Martha told me in English class she wants to learn enough to start her own daycare; I am so proud of her. She is married and not able to bear children so she wants a daycare to care for the children of others. This is her dream, a goal, she plans to realize and she has taken progressive steps toward this. What are your dreams and plans to reach your dream? My dream is to be a faithful companion and help to empower women and men to meet their goals of integration into US society. Regular prayer sustains me in this ministry. Kathy Long, OP Waukegan, IL