Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I live in a four unit apartment building own by my congregation.   There are eight Sisters here. When the shut down came last March - we declared we would be together in the building.  We didn't have a name for it but later came the term:  Covid Bubble.  Grace appeared! During this time we have supported those who would need to come and go in ministry, found creative ways to celebrate, and had the great opportunities to practice patience!  Grace appeared! Each of us had to find ways to cope that fit our personalities.  Two of us love doing jigsaw puzzles and have passed along hints with a puzzle the other had not done.  Some play cards - win or lose - it didn't matter. Grace appeared! I continue seeing people for Spiritual Direction, thanks to technology.  And, because of this same technology, have "attended" Mass & panel discussions, taken classes, joined events with people around the globe as well as p...

In a terrifying way, the twin pandemics of Racism and Covid-19 may bring us to the brink of all that could save us as a people. Jan Richardson’s reflection in  Circle of Grace , invites us to see a blessing in this moment. “This Grace That Scorches Us” Here’s one thing you must understand about this blessing: it is not for you alone. It is stubborn about this. Do not even try to lay hold of it if you are by yourself, thinking you can carry it on your own. To bear this blessing, you must first take yourself to a place where everyone does not look like you or think like you, a place where they do not believe precisely as you believe, where their thoughts and ideas and gestures are not exact echoes of your own. Bring your sorrow. Bring your grief. Bring your fear. Bring your weariness, your pain, your disgust at how broken the world is, how fractured, how fragmented by its fighting, its wars, its hungers, its penchant for power, its ceaseless repetition of the his...

These past weeks prior to Holy Week, like many others, I’ve been watching the NCAA basketball tournament games leading up to the “Final Four.”   After each game, there is the celebration of the winning team and also the experience of loss for the team that did not “make the Final Four.” It occurred to me as I observed the loss and devastation of the team that did not move on to the next game, Holy Week is a week during which we recognize our losses.   And our losses, as humans, are many:   a game, financial security, health, a job, reputation, dignity, relationships, a child, a parent, life as we once knew it …     The litany is endless.   We remember that Jesus experienced the depth of human loss.   He endured the most excruciating loss of all – the sense of being totally deserted, forsaken.   “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me,” he cried.   But Jesus remembered, and we also remember Abba’s promise to us in the words from Je...