Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I enjoy going to the movies and have several friends that do as well.   With each of them I know their movie ‘tastes’ and who to ask to join me depending on the film.   My tastes run from Star Wars (I want to be the first nun in space!) to the most recent one I saw: Loving . Loving is a true story of an interracial couple who decided to get married but living in the state of Virginia in the 1950s, this was seen as a criminal act.   For some, the movie would seem slow moving, but the tension that happens because of the pace and the discipline of the actors playing their parts brings the reality of the horror of how people have been and continue to be treated in our country. The irony is that the film title is the last name of this couple and yet so very fitting for the love they had for each other.   Films like Loving provide much more than mere entertainment.   They are teachable moments of how we are meant to be with each other as c...

So often I think of “ministry” and “mission” as synonymous, both meaning “work” or “job.” As a candidate, conversations with sisters have challenged me to broaden my understanding of mission to include the other pillars of Dominican life: study, prayer, and community.  Investing relationships of love, trust, and mutuality with one another to build community offers a powerful witness.   In the broader culture as productivity-oriented Americans, our identity is closed tied with what we do from nine to five.   When we meet someone for the first time, we generally tell them our job title, and ask them theirs.   We tend to define ourselves on what we do rather than how we are with one another.   Of course ministries – teaching, preaching, social justice work, direct service, legislative advocacy – are important for apostolic women and all committed Christians.   However – especially in our polarized nation and world – our relationships with each other...

Three years ago I began to journey with a Juneau-ite who was interested in exploring Associate membership in our congregation.  He filled out the initial questionnaire and downloaded the Associate Handbook.  We began meeting on a regular basis to go over the material in each of the chapters. After we finished working with the Handbook I asked him if he would like to begin the application process, but he wasn't ready for that step. Since I am the only Dominican of Sinsinawa he knew I made it a point to introduce him to anyone from our congregation who visited Juneau--at this point he has met 3-4 others.   We continued to meet periodically and had good conversations about the church, his faith life, and spirituality in general. During these conversations he never again brought up the subject of Associate membership, so one day I asked him where he was with a decision. He said he needed more time but to continue to check in with him, so this is what I have been doin...

This October I got a great opportunity to attend a Choice Asia Conference in Hong Kong.  Nowhere in my wildest dreams would I have believed that I would have gotten this fantastic opportunity to represent Choice T&T in Asia.  A few months ago I did not even know that there was Choice in Asia!   The Choice Movement is an international movement that hosts weekend retreats for single young adults between the ages of 18-40 years of age.  These weekends are filled with personal testimonies, spiritual inputs, activities and group sessions all with the intention of creating a space during the weekend that the young adults can do a lot of introspection and reflection with the help of the Holy Spirit on what their vocation maybe. As the spiritual director of Choice T&T, I along with the Gabby the chairperson was able to attend this momentous event in Hong Kong.  The moment we landed in Hong Kong, after twenty-three hours flying and hours spent awaiting t...

“Doubt is not the opposite of Faith; Certainty is the opposite of Faith.”  This is one of my favorite axioms and it’s never felt as true as it does this morning.  Like so many other people I fully expected that Clinton would be elected president last night.  I was not enthusiastic about it—she was not my first choice for multiple reasons—but I recognized that it’s the way things needed to be.  Because of her election I anticipated another, protracted wave of division, violence and ugliness in our country—also part of the inevitable outcome of where we’ve found ourselves as a nation.  These were certainties in my mind that I begrudgingly came to accept. This morning I find myself humbled and mystified by the outcome—what was unfathomable to me yesterday is the reality today.  Today I will push aside the feelings of dread, cynicism and fear that are creeping into my mind and I will focus on accepting and embracing my meekness.  God ...