Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

For most of my 9 years as a Sinsinawa Dominican, I have ministered among women on the margins of society; margins set by poverty, sexism, racism, domestic violence, and addiction among others. I know firsthand the plight of working women and working mothers, having been a single mother myself. I didn’t know what this life would be like but quickly became aware of the many privileges we as women religious have. It was from that limited, therefore faulty, perspective that made me hesitate ministering directly with our elderly sisters – I thought they had everything they needed and had all the help they needed. Thankfully, providence intervened. Last summer, I began ministering with our sisters at an assisted living facility in south-central Wisconsin while taking Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) classes. I see more clearly now something I thought I knew well … that need is everywhere. Hurt and loneliness are everywhere. Longing to live a life of meaning is common to us all.    ...

What a strange series of days we’ve moved through: Thanksgiving Thursday; Black Friday; Shop Small Saturday; buy more on Sunday; Cyber Monday; Giving Tuesday. How ironic that “thanksgiving” and “giving” are the bookends on a series of days during which we are urged to buy, buy, and buy more. Both advertising and news coverage about these days create an image of US citizens as unthinking, out-of-control shoppers.   Consumerism – an ever-expanding consumption of goods – seems to be the primary purpose of our nation’s economy.   But what happens to those who do not have the money it takes “to buy, buy, and buy more?”   Nearly 1/2 of the world’s population — more than 3 billion people — live on less than $2.50 a day.   In the USA, 1 in 5 children live in poverty. More than thirty years ago, the Catholic Bishops in the US declared: “All people have a right to participate in the economic life of society. . . .It is wrong for a person or group to be excluded ...

    “I am fighting the world and the devil by myself.”   “Community ends isolation.”   “…Jesus was led by the Spirit into the desert to be tempted by the devil... and, behold, angels came and ministered to him.” These quotes are from, respectively, a recent conversation with a woman in a homeless shelter, as she struggled with issues most of us handle routinely and without thought; the philosophy of Earthlinks, a Denver-based social enterprise providing safe space and community for people experiencing homelessness and poverty (earthlinks-colorado.org); and from Matthew 4:1-11 – the Gospel for the 1 st Sunday in Lent.   What, if anything, do they have in common? I think they represent a progression – from a place of ‘being stuck’ in self-reliance and individualism, (in this case born out of despair), to a recognition that we are relational beings created in the image and likeness of our loving and relational God, to a fullness of life...

“Let us wake up then, open our eyes in apostolic charity, and if we are called, set out for any place where the work is great and difficult.” That statement by our founder, Samuel Mazzuchelli, has challenged me lately. Ministry with victims of domestic violence has been both life giving and energy sapping.   At times, I feel like Alice – not of Wonderland but of the Looking Glass.   Every day I am impelled to look into a mirror and claim what I see; to acknowledge some of my internal reactions to people I’ve met, situations I’ve encountered, and to the culture in which I find myself - a culture so different from my own experience and one that is negatively impacted by the effects of racism, poverty and white privilege – including my own.   This work, while so necessary, is painful for me.   Honestly, sometimes, it just seems too great and too difficult.   A friend recently suggested that perhaps the great and difficult work I am being called to is...