Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Dear Lent, You snuck up on me early this year, old friend.   I wasn’t quite ready for you!   But here you are again, and this year, you’re asking me an important question: how well do I really know you? I admit, you aren’t everyone’s favorite season.   You don’t have a reputation for being cheerful, after all.   But the more I get to know you, the more I realized that you aren’t all about sinfulness and sacrifice, though those are realities you speak.   The practices you invite us to embrace – prayer, fasting, and almsgiving – are really about mercy!   If we embrace them well, they can nourish us, bring us outside of ourselves, and help us be more merciful with ourselves and others. Through fasting you invite me to take a break – either temporary or permanent – from the non-essentials.   This can help me to root out the parts of myself that get caught up in destructive habits or selfish behavior.   It can nurture gratitude and en...

I live in a community composed of two Vietnamese and two Sinsinawa Dominicans.   That means we’re all learning about one another’s culture all the time. So within one week, we celebrated Tet (the Lunar New Year, which fell on February 8 th this year) and then Mardi Gras on the 9 th .   Vong and Lien decorated and invited a dozen guests for prayers and supper before Tet, but our Mardi Gras was relatively subdued.   Our house is, after all, a house of study and we’re weeks away from mid-term break.   Tet was an eye-opener for me.   I’ve learned that for many Asian countries, it’s the beginning of spring.   (When I check the newspaper, I find that from now on, the average high temperatures do actually rise.)   In Viet Nam and China, the celebration promises, or at least hopes for, abundance.   People give friends and family money and feast on the best foods they can find—a sort of Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Years combined.   Having b...

As Dominican Women, we strive to live our lives grounded in the Word of God.  Lent becomes an opportunity for deeper reflection on our relationship with the Source of All Being.  One of our sisters, Marta Alken, OP recently wrote an article in which she highlighted four points that reflect a life centered in God: -  we strive for relationships that are enlivened by creativity – the ability for self-reflection, for change, for giving and receiving, for solitude; -   we have a capacity to experience a wide range of emotion – feel all of life for ourselves and others, -  we have the ability for self-transcendence—the capacity to lay down our lives for others and work for the common good, -  we recognize a healthy self-esteem – we understand that we are part of God’s web of life. ¹ I have used these four points as my daily reflection during Lent.   A life centered in God is a life that inspires joy, vision, imagination, detachment, disposs...

Many years ago I came to realize giving up chocolate for Lent was not really helpful for anyone including myself.   I began to see Lent as a time to take up a good habit, to form a new way of being, and/or to learn something useful. At Pope Francis’ suggestion, I am giving up indifference for Lent.   And…I am trying to allow this to be a Spirit led process. Prayerfully, I am asking more questions of myself:   How am I indifferent to needs in my life, in my congregation of Sisters, in the Church, in the neighborhood, and beyond?   What are systemic evils that I choose to ignore?   What systemic evils do I need to do more than I am doing already?   What do I need to learn so that my indifference may be healed? Yes…healed! And will I be patient and trusting in the healing needed? One systemic evil the Sinsinawa Dominicans have called ourselves to face is our own internalized racism - not only personally but importantly as an inst...

Remember when you made or bought a Valentine for everyone in your class?   A little older and it was only for favorites.   And then…?   What was it like this year? For us who are neither what can it mean?   What must Valentine’s Day be like for people who are alone, or worse, in prison?   Valentine’s Day has become inflated beyond its original intent.   It’s become associated with chocolates, flower and cards.    ‘St. Valentine was a priest in Rome who was known for assisting martyrs.   When he was arrested and refused to give up his faith he was beheaded.   Because he was willing to give his heart he was considered true to the God of Love.' It’s easy to say that Valentine’s Day is for kids – or for lovers.   Pope Francis, in his recent encyclical, Laudato Si, says in Para. 228:   “Care for nature is part of a lifestyle [which includes the capacity for living together and communion].” How would you describe yo...

I cannot believe that Lent is already here!  The challenging and beautiful journey of the Lenten period is here with us again.   Unlike earlier in my life I now look forward to this special season in the church's year.  You may ask why?  The Lenten season for me is a representation of life.  It is about the pains and joys of life.  A dying to myself for forty days to hopefully rise again to new life in Jesus Christ in the Easter season.  It may mean some falling down, yet I intend to rise up again and again.   "Rending my heart, not my garments."  Focusing more on the condition of my heart.  A time where I can genuinely examine my life and try to root out what is not life-giving through consistent fasting, prayer and helping others.   I try to work on the elements in my life that I know is not good for me or beneficial to others.   It is an opportunity of forty days to let go of bad habits and persistent sinful behavio...