Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I spent this summer in Wisconsin at my motherhouse, not something I had planned on. To my surprise it turned out to be a summer embodying the many stages of religious life. We had celebrations of new novices, a Sister making first Vows, a Sister making perpetual Vows, a Sister completing her degree, 50 th Jubilees, and funerals.    I reconnected with Sisters and connected with “New Sisters” whom I didn’t know because they were out in mission.   I was given the gift to be fully present as Sister to my Sisters in assisted living.    I also met new lay people journeying with us in mission.   It turned out to be a summer of “unexpected gifts.”   What was an unexpected gift or surprise for you this summer? Priscilla Torres, OP

We all experience difficult times and traumatic moments--it's part of our life on earth.  With God's grace we accept these times and find inner strength to cope with them. So when we receive an unexpected gift, our hearts fill with delight and we hopefully savor the gift. I live in a temperate rain forest.  This means we have a good deal of rain and very few truly sunny days.  In April we had a total of 10 inches of rain, but last month we were the recipients of a special gift--warmth and sunshine!  Rainfall total was only half an inch, and the sun shone almost every day.   What do you do with such a gift?  I had to find a pair of sunglasses, and then ate outside as often as I could. Children were able to go swimming in the lakes, families could go on hikes without packing boots.  Everyone was in good spirits. We know this special gift will come to an end--after all, this is  a rain forest.  But this has been a reminder to u...