Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

By now we are used to signs outside of hospitals and skilled care facilities that state “Heroes Work Here” (and they do).  But as these weeks of Advent have gone by and we have experienced losses, deeper worries, greater anxiety about an unknown future, I think we need to put that sign on our own hearts, on our front doors, on our bathroom mirrors.  To me a hero is a person who exhibits courage without first weighing the cost.  A hero takes a leap of faith and turns it into a tumbling routine of courage plus faith plus love.  Isn’t that what we are all trying to do every day so that the Word of God can be born anew into our world?  So that the Word of God can be born within each of us, and so dwell within us, and help our ordinary lives always proclaim the extraordinary mercy of God?  Let us pray for the courage to give life to that Word, to be midwives of hope and deep peace. Priscilla Wood, OP Dubuque, IA 

Tense, anxious, afraid, hopeful, cautious and now relief and joyfully optimism. These are some of the feelings that have recycled through my system since last Tuesday. I’ve tried to let go but these feelings kept coming back.   It has been difficult to live with the unknown, to let go of a deeply desired outcome.   And yet I do know that change is a constant part of this ever evolving life on earth. I realize how attached I am to the illusion of being in control and am humbly aware that with Covid and election results, how little control I really have.   So I take refuge with a merciful God in whose cosmic embrace I am given life. I walk amongst the trees and by the lakeside and my perspective adjusts. I watch the birds feeding from the seed I have scattered outside my window. I watch them drink and fluff their feathers in the bird bath. They have no concerns about the elections or Covid. They go about their lives expressing in their very being the mystery of God.   ...

“Practice” – how many times as kids were we told how important it was to practice if we wanted to learn something new!  From piano scales to riding a two-wheeler, from driving a car in the church parking lot to secretly learning new dance moves in our bedrooms, we all had to learn that it took a lot of practice to truly master something we cared about.   We also well remember the tasks or skills we didn’t practice, because we just didn’t care about them! So now we come to this time of an upside down world, where we are called to practice the holy intangibles of patience, charity, and faith in the unknown as well as the personal challenges of self-control and self-discipline.  Probably the best admonition for this season of both Easter and the pandemic is a line from a poem by Wendell Berry:  “ Be joyful, though   you have considered all the facts.  Practice resurrection.”   How we practice  that  is a life-long task, I believe, ...