Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

During these years of Covid I’ve had lots of opportunity for solitude at home. Lately though I’ve noticed that it’s easy for me to fill up the quiet with music or podcasts or radio and tv programs. I have earbuds so I can seem quiet but inside I am miles away listening to a book or a program. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing. However, I am aware that it does keep me from being  PRESENT . I listen to podcasts or a book while I’m getting the dinner ready, and I am entertained by and enjoy the content. However, it does distract me from actively paying full attention to whatever I am engaged with. Peeling  this  carrot or washing  this  dish. Perhaps I have become used to filling up all the spaces.     When I go out for a walk I’ve been listening to books on my phone. Enjoyable for sure but it distracts  me from being present to the walk itself. When I switch off, I can pay attention to the wind on my skin, to the texture of the bark on t...

Are you awake to the  sacrament of the present moment? What a gift to really live in the NOW! That’s all we have. The more I choose to practice mindfulness, I am able to “wake up” and welcome each day with a grateful heart. What a privilege to assist our sisters in these uncertain times as we learn to “be” and live more fully in the present moment. Together we are “waking up” to this day, discovering the sacredness of each moment.    Brother David Steindl-Rast shares a simple practice  that leads to grateful living. He encourages us to:           Stop!  Be present. . . awake. . .alert . . .aware!   Look!  Gain perspective. . .let go of judgment. . .be open. . .live in awe!      Go!  Cultivate a sense of possibility. . .deepen your appreciation for life. . .             be creative. . .make a difference!   Brother David’s “A Network for Grateful...

We have been stopped in our tracks by a pandemic. Things that filled our days are no longer available to us. We are forced to make different choices now. The reflection below imagines a different present and future. See if this resonates with you.  And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still. And listened more deeply. Some meditated, some prayed, some danced. Some met their shadows. And the people began to think differently. And the people healed. And, in the absence of people living in ignorant, dangerous, mindless, and heartless ways, the earth began to heal. And when the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live and heal the earth fully, as they had been healed.                       ...