Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

This week, as we celebrate All Saints and All Souls Days (Nov. 1/Nov. 2), I am mindful of the vocational call God asks of each of us. All Saints Day is a day to remind us how we're supposed to live – as patient, kind, virtuous people. All Souls' Day calls us to pray for those who have gone before us and to remember their life here on Earth. Both days call us to connection while at the same time calling us to some letting go.   In the last 10 days, we’ve said goodbye to several beloved sisters at the assisted living facility where I minister. We’ve said goodbye to many others at our congregation’s skilled care facility. We celebrate them as we remember their lives among us. Our vocational call – no matter what path we find ourselves on in life – is essentially the same. We are here to be present to each other, and - in the words of Ram Dass – to walk each other home.   Kathy Flynn OP Madison, WI

This past week a good friend was called to new life in God.     As one of Sister’s friends, I was invited to gather around the table with the Motherhouse liturgist and others who are involved in planning wake services and funeral liturgies for Sisters.     I felt honored to be called to participate in the design of the rituals celebrating the life of my friend.     This process was also very healing for me as I told story after story describing my experience of and participation in the life of Sister.  I think of her as a gentle woman, so peaceful, giving, and loving with the “too-numerous-to-count” first graders she taught to read and write. Sister masterfully instructed children in beginning mathematics.  There was no memorization of math facts in her classroom; she coached children how to arrive at answers through innovative exercises.  Most of all she loved, cherished, and affirmed each child.     As the shar...

In April I went to my 50 th class reunion at Dominican College of San Rafael in California.   I had a blast!   I stayed with my friend (of 50 years!), Patty, and her husband, Phil. Then in June, because I was a transfer student from then Rosary College, later Dominican University, I also went to their reunion. In between there was a smaller reunion of my classmates from high school.   We celebrated our 50 th reunion in 2014.    And then there is a reunion of parish consultants from the Archdiocese of Milwaukee in August, to which I’ll also go. That is a lot of remembering!   Especially when you consider all the 50s in there! What do you remember? Are you willing to go back there? Ruth Poochigian, O.P. Madison, WI 

The other day, three friends that I had grown up with came over from Milwaukee to have lunch with me.   We had great fun reminiscing about those days.   Two of them are now married, soon to celebrate their wedding anniversary.   We met up at our class reunion – itself an event!!   The old place isn’t what it once was, which I guess is how life evolves…   We laughed about our teachers, the rules of the institution and the antics of kids in our class.   And we showed each other pictures.   (One of them accompanies this article.   That’s me, the youngest of the three, with my mom about two years after my dad died.) Remembering is an important activity.     We need to do it so we can dwell in who we once were, giving thanks that we have become the person we are.   Remembering is what we do at every gathering of believers when we read the stories of our common past in the scriptures.   And giving thanks is what believers...

Last weekend I had an unexpected experience.  I spent the afternoon with a teacher whom I had known in high school – and I found myself looking back at those years though they were just yesterday. Memory is a tricky thing.  I have photos from those years that make me “think” I am that age again. There were lots of young people on the university campus wherever we went, though, so they were a reminder for me of how much older I am!  I find it interesting that the choices and decisions young people have today have such big price tags attached to them.  Even the decision to go to college means that many young people will begin their post-graduation years with a LOT of debt!!  Yet it is the experience is that makes it so important. In that way my teacher and I were not so different from the university students we saw all around us.  I ended up going to the same college she went to, but even then our experiences were different.  Remembering those ...

I’m planning to move!   And for the first time in my life that means “ down sizing.”  I ask myself, when , or why did it come to this? Over the years I’ve helped others move into smaller spaces, but never myself (unless you count when I became a Dominican!).   Over the years, though, I also accumulated “stuff.”   Some of it is related to whatever ministry I had at the time – books and papers, primarily – and for some reason I’ve had a hard time letting go of it all.   Now is the time, though.   So in the next few months I will need to remember , and to let go . Remembering takes me back to those places where I’ve been and to those things I was concerned about.   I was younger then and had what seemed to be an endless lifetime ahead of me.   I never even thought about getting older or not being involved in ministry.   Letting go , on the other hand, means that I need to remember that I am no longer the person I once was. ...