Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I have lived as   a Sinsinawa Dominican for 50 years and am celebrating this with the Congregation, family and friends in one week. I have been unpacking the meaning of "Jubilee" in my life these past months and I have found one of Rilke's Poems relevant.   The first three lines are:                   I live my life in widening circles                   that reach out across the world.                   I may not complete this last one                   but I give myself to it.                                      Rilke's Book of Hours, Lo...

Moving is considered one of the most stressful experiences.   No one moves without a good reason because it is so much work .   Like everyone else sisters move.   Why?   We move for many reasons: a change of ministry, a desire to downsize and simplify life, a desire for community and, because we mostly are renters, an increase in rent or a change in ownership of the property. I live with one other sister and we moved from a rental house to an apartment complex on the other side of town where other of our Dominicans of Sinsinawa live.   So, we moved because we wanted to downsize and so that we could be part of the community that has formed there in the past year! Moving was a community event.   Sisters and an associate carried and unpacked boxes, put together furniture, fixed food, hosted slumber parties and laughed a lot all weekend.   See accompanying photo for proof!!   Moving can be a harrowing experience, but sharing it with them made...

I recently read a great story, which goes like this: A “boatman” comes from the city to camp beside a river near the author’s house, ostensibly to escape from his busy life and enjoy nature.   However, the boatman spends all his time rushing around, angrily fixing his broken boat motor, and then zooming up and down the quiet river all day.   After watching all this, the author observes with great sadness: “he had stayed as remote from the place he had come to as if he had never left the city where he lived… because he could not be still, the place could not exist for him .” (Wendell Berry, “The Nature Consumers”) As a generally busy person living in a culture which prizes busyness and fears stillness, Berry’s words read as a challenge to me.   It makes me wonder… what is it that “cannot exist” for me when I refuse to be still? When I learn to be still, the people and places that creep into my consciousness reveal God to me in new ways, breathing life into the psa...

In the course of daily living during these days, the topic uppermost in my thoughts and actions is Jubilee.  I am one of the coordinators of the Mound Jubilee celebration.  What it comes down to is sort of like being on a team of wedding planners.  There are many details to attend to before we welcome our Jubilarians and their guests in a couple of weeks. In the midst of this, I’ve been thinking about and praying with the Jubilarians.  These 13 women who have shared sisterhood for over 50 years will have the gift of gathering together where their journey began, sharing and remembering stories, and re-connecting after having been separated geographically by their ministry locations.  I am even more aware of my own journey and the path where God has led me.  I am graced! Do you remember the joy of celebrating a family 50 th wedding anniversary? How did God speak to you in that experience? Is God calling you to sisterhood with us? Anne Su...