Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

What must it be like to leave the family you were born into, and to leave behind the language and culture of your country to go halfway around the world?  Frightening!  That was the experience of our immigrant ancestors.  My parents, for example, came to this country as children, my father from Armenia and my mother from Turkey.  They had so much to learn! Sister Vong, O.P. and Sister Lien, O.P. are currently living at our motherhouse at Sinsinawa WI.  They left their Dominican Convent in North Vietnam and accepted a mission in obedience to come to the U.S., to learn English and then to acquire degrees in order to go back to their sisters in North Vietnam to teach them.  Their teachers? Many of the retired ( former teachers) who reside at Sinsinawa. Several weeks ago, Sister Vong renewed her vows as a Dominican.  The ceremony was a truly bi-lingual experience.  Lien welcomed everyone – in both Vietnamese and English – with a...

How well do you know yourself? What helps you go deeper into the mystery of your true Self? As a spiritual g uide I am often exploring questions like this with the people with whom I meet and most especially with myself. In the past I thought that focusing on myself was perhaps too self-centered. Over the years however I realized it is essential to know myself. Catherine of Siena, a   14 th  century  Dominican, steeped in contemplation and action , stresses that the journey towards God was also a journey into herself.  The place within “s he called the  ‘ interior cell ’  or the  ‘ cell of the heart ’  where she understood experientially and most fully God’s boundless love for her and all humanity . ”   (Mary O’Driscoll, OP) This journey to know yourself is a life-long journey.  There are many opportunities that can help you go deeper into the mystery of your true Self. Daily contemplative prayer, faith-sharing groups, spiritua...

These days I am so taken up with my studies that finding time to fit in my other responsibilities has been a bit of a stretch.  I seem to be consumed by it.  So much 'dense' literature, which I have to read over and over to really get it!   As demanding as it has been on my time however, I love study and I am grateful for how it has deepened and broadened my perspective on life.  And actually, some of it has been fun and easy reading too.  But I am also very aware of deep truths that I have learned along the way that have come, not from books but from allowing myself to be consumed with life and with life's experiences, taking a long look at them and distilling out of them the essence of what makes for good, meaningful, honest, holy and just living and loving.  From way back St. Dominic saw the importance of study and contemplation so that we, as members of the Order of Preachers can be more credible witnesses to Truth as...