Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

One of my ministries at the parish where I work is to coordinate the Food Pantry.   It is a daunting task to organize this service.   But even more overwhelming is to sit weekly with families who do not have enough food to eat three meals a day.   Just this past week, a dad said to me, “Sister, I have gone without dinner many a night this past month so my kids could eat.”   I immediately thought of the words of Christ spoken during the Eucharist, “This is my body given for you.”     Christ is truly risen and present in the love we share with our sisters and brothers in need.   As Dominicans, our role is to serve and to address the systemic issues behind hunger wherever we find ourselves.   What choices do I need to make so others can have what they need?   How do we join with others to create new systems of just distribution of resources? And, how about you, where are you encountering the risen Christ today? Peggy Ryan, OP ...

Earlier this month, Sr. Toni Harris. OP talked about involvement in the democratic election process in our country for the sake of the common good.   Since she wrote that blog entry, she and I and more than 200 Sisters gathered to exercise our voice and vote at our General Chapter.   Chapters like this one occur every 5 years as we Sisters consider our future, especially the next 5 years.    Then we elect a Prioress and Council to lead us in the direction we said we want to go. Since we held this Chapter at our motherhouse, we were well cared for, including our snack times.   Since Sinsinawa is in Wisconsin, it was fun to see cheese curds make an appearance one afternoon.   And we had choices of three flavors. Chapter days were filled with choices, “ flavorable ” conversations, decisions, directions and then elections. We asked Sr. Toni Harris, OP to be our Prioress for the next five years.   She said: “yes.” This summer will be the installa...

Dominicans talk about Study being one of the pillars of Dominican life. Lately, I’ve been thinking lately of how that means so much more than “book study.”   True, Dominicans are traditional students with degrees and certificates; some of us have impressive vocabularies and skills; these all evidence book-learning.   Study should, however, encourage so much more in us than piling up “credits.”   Study and everything else we do is, after all, in service to our mission: to preach the gospel.   Formal study is only part of an attitude of learning.   We keep learning from everything we do. That is what matters.   Recently, when I rewrote a book review for an academic journal, a couple of editors made suggestions that helped me write a better review.   One of the computer techs at Edgewood College helped me recall the ins and outs of an editing program I hadn’t used for years.   Dominicans do tend to read a lot of scripture and theology, but a...

This is my second attempt at blogging and I wish to share today a very special experience I had over the Easter weekend.  My brother, John, is a priest for the Sioux City Diocese and has always worked in small parishes in rural Iowa.  After 46 years of ministry, he will be retiring.  Saturday, I drove to Wall Lake, Iowa where my family gathered to celebrate this occasion.  John and I are less than a year apart in age and we grew up like Irish Twins. There were six children in our family and we were blessed with loving parents and a marvelous education by the Sinsinawa Dominican Sisters.  Both John and I began our religious vocations right after high school and I celebrated my final vows at his first Mass. The prayer card that we created for this occasion expressed our hopes. Dark and cold we may be, but this is no winter now. The frozen misery of centuries breaks, cracks, begins to move; the thunder is the thunder of the floes, the thaw, the flood, the upst...

Some days ago, I completed and returned my absentee ballot because I won’t be at home on the day that my state holds its primary elections. Do you sometimes feel overwhelmed by the continuing barrage of campaign ads and the unending media coverage of primary elections and caucuses leading-up to the July political conventions? The many political action committees and individuals who use enormous wealth to influence campaigns and elections make me wonder whether our “government of the people, by the people, for the people” still exists. My tendency toward cynicism was brought-up short in recent conversations with the two Dominican Sisters from Vietnam with whom I live in community. Both Sisters are college students. One Sister has received course assignments related to our US political parties and current candidates. Discussing an assignment with her, I realized how difficult it must be to understand all this political activity when a person has spent a lifetime in a country that fo...