Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

The song that best describes my call to religious life is   Amazing Grace . I never felt I had a call to religious life, despite some Ursuline and Dominican Sisters having suggested it to me. So how did I end up here?  First, I had started a novena to the Mother of Perpetual Help because they always did that novena at my church, Holy Names in Omaha, NE.  My intention in making the novena had nothing to do with discerning religious life but was to ask for help in finding me a job because I was just graduating from college at the University of Omaha with a degree in Home Economics and a minor in Education. I was praying to the Blessed Mother to help me find an appropriate job.  As I waited for the bus to “the U”, a young man passed me at the bus stop. He could see that I was going to the University, and I could see by the stack of books in his car that he was, too. He offered me a ride so I wouldn’t have to take the bus. One morning, he had his car radio on, and I...

She was beatified by Pope John XXIII and he called her ‘the apostle of the Holy Spirit.’  She was a 19 th  Century Mystic who founded an Order in Italy, called the Oblates of the Holy Spirit.  She shared with others her love for and promoted a devotion to the Holy Spirit in their everyday lives.  She petitioned Pope Leo XIII many times, asking him to invite the whole Church to grow in this devotion.  Moved by her passion he mandated that the entire Church pray the Novena to the Holy Spirit leading up to Pentecost.  In one sense Jesus himself instituted this Novena when, at his Ascension he said to the disciples: “Stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.” Luke 24:49. The apostles returned to the city and spent the whole time in prayer with Mary the Mother of Jesus.  We all know what happened!   Today is the 4 th  day of this Novena which begins on the Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter.  You can find t...

What difference does it make? How many times have we heard that question?  Do I admit that I think it at times even if I don't say it? These days of Advent - with the O Antiphons - are a kind of novena - a final preparation for the coming of Christ among us.  But wait - he came 2000 years ago - you might be thinking.  Yet for me every Advent is a preparation for Christ's presence in me and in the world. What difference could these closing Advent days be for you and for me?  What yet do we need to ask of the Christ child - Emmanuel - God with us?  What might we do on Christ's behalf? We need to cast away the question I used to start this blog.  The real and true and holy declaration may be (and read the first words carefully):  What a difference it makes because I know Christ is in everyone - because there is a need in the world for mercy - because God has been compassionate to me . Contemplating this declaration moves us to this que...