Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

The St Dominic Window in the Queen of Rosary Chapel. Sinsinawa, WI August 8 th   is the feast of Saint Dominic.     I think it is an appropriate day to ask what would St. Dominic do in the light of two pandemics – one spreading a deadly disease and the other spreading the sin of racial injustice. What would St. Dominic do?  I find the answer an easy one because our Sisters and Associates, the daughters of Saint Dominic, are guiding us to the truth.  As a result of COVID-19, we have Sisters and Associates who are in hospitals and nursing homes, schools and social service agencies.  They are burying the dead and feeding the hungry.  They are accompanying the most vulnerable.    As a result of the current racial unrest, we have Sisters and Associates protesting and speaking out.  There are also those who are continuing to caucus or discuss with other White Sisters and Associates how we can rid our congregation of th...

Since May I have had the opportunity to visit four places dedicated to the history of African Americans in our country:   National Museum of African American History and Culture in DC, a small and powerful museum in Springfield, IL and finally while traveling back from community days a stop in Montgomery AL to see both The Legacy Museum (From Enslavement to Mass Incarceration) and The National Memorial for Peace & Justice (remembering all those who have been lynched because of the color of their skin). While I could not take pictures inside The Legacy Museum, I could at The Memorial and have included two with this blog.   Each pillar has a state & county on it and the names & dates of those people who were lynched.   In the museum, there is an interactive US map showing where all the known lynchings took place.   While the southern states dominated by numbers there are very few states that have none. Each of these places I have been these past m...

“Let us wake up then, open our eyes in apostolic charity, and if we are called, set out for any place where the work is great and difficult.” That statement by our founder, Samuel Mazzuchelli, has challenged me lately. Ministry with victims of domestic violence has been both life giving and energy sapping.   At times, I feel like Alice – not of Wonderland but of the Looking Glass.   Every day I am impelled to look into a mirror and claim what I see; to acknowledge some of my internal reactions to people I’ve met, situations I’ve encountered, and to the culture in which I find myself - a culture so different from my own experience and one that is negatively impacted by the effects of racism, poverty and white privilege – including my own.   This work, while so necessary, is painful for me.   Honestly, sometimes, it just seems too great and too difficult.   A friend recently suggested that perhaps the great and difficult work I am being called to is...

For decades, the Sinsinawa Dominicans have been engaged in becoming an anti-racist institution.   This work offers us the opportunity to daily assess our privileges and commit ourselves to deepen our awareness of how our very lives and the institutions in which we operate perpetuate those privileges.   Recently, in a citizenship class I offer on Thursday evenings for Spanish-speakers, a guest speaker who recently passed the citizenship test came to share her experiences of taking the exam.   When asked if the class had any questions for her, several persons asked almost simultaneously, “Did you experience a lot of racism?”   Despite all my years of working on becoming anti-racist, this question woke me up once again.   First of all, as a white woman, I would never have to think of that question.   Secondly, the lens through which I look at life, at my daily experiences, has been shaped by the color of my skin.   I am always grateful for my m...