Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

As a Dominican I am growing in awareness that I am called to witness to a community of faith and love.  This week I was home alone.  One member of our household was at the White Privilege Conference in Kansas City and another was the dog sitter a few miles away at our friend's house.   In a way it was nice to leave dirty dishes in the sink, have TV on or off completely at my own choice and eat whenever I felt like it.  We did pray together and for one another by phone at 7 am each day.   There will be joy when we are all together once again.  We will listen to each other’s adventures and rejoice in what each of us learned while away. Jesus calls us to love one another and to even wash each other’s feet when needed.   We believe He is risen, indeed, and has sent God’s spirit to walk with us in the way of faith and love. What a blessing it is to witness to the world by being community of faith and love. How can we g...

Feast day of Catherine of Siena, April 29th I humbly admit to my simple Catholic background; I went to public schools, Sunday and Holy day mass, and rudimentary catechism classes in our rural church on Saturday mornings.  I never opened a Bible until I went to a Catholic college – and even then I slept through a lot of that class!  So when I entered the Congregation I was in left field when it came to knowing my roots.  That was especially true when it came to learning about Catherine of Siena.  A) I’d never heard of her and B) after hearing of her all I could think was “What was she thinking?” – all that solitude and crazy fasting and extreme self-denial and dialogues with Jesus and…I could go on.  So here we are on her feast day all these years later and thanks to great contemporary scholarship by Dominican women and others, I have new and deeper insights into Catherine’s life of faith, her intense and loving service to the Church and ...

Yesterday was Administrative Professionals Day, “a day originally created in 1952 by the International Association of Administrative Professionals.   It’s a day set aside for honoring those wonderful, dedicated people who do so much to keep businesses running at peak efficiency.”   So said the back of a card I found on my desk yesterday.   Yes, I serve in the role of an administrative professional for the Leadership Council of our Congregation.    The verse in the card and the individual messages of each of the sisters I support evoked so many smiles in me.   I felt total joy, and my day was certainly made bright.   So I began to reflect on what a wonder it is to express gratitude and what a difference it can make.    I don’t know about you, but I often say “Thank You” without even thinking about it.    What if each time I expressed my thanks to someone, I also looked that person in the eye and let him/her know that I really ...

These are uncertain and troubling times in our nation and world – even a cursory glance at the headlines reveal that.  Speaking of joy might seem naïve.  Yet joy is not a happy-go-lucky, carefree attitude or a Pollyanna-ish perky positivity ungrounded in reality.  Ultimately, joy is not something that we can manufacture from within ourselves.   Joy comes from the Holy Spirit, as we are reminded in Galatians 5:22.   In Jesus’ last discourse, he speaks tenderly to his disciples: “these things I have spoken to you, so that my joy may be in you, and your joy may be full” (Jn 15:11).   Immediately before Jesus suffered and died, he gathered those he loved and spoke of the fullness of joy!   Clearly, the joy Jesus spoke of can coexist with pain and suffering. “Be joyful though you have considered all the facts,” wrote Wendell Berry in his poem “Manifesto: the Mad Farmer Liberation Front.”   As Christians committed to the common good, with a p...

So, I had the students who came on retreat dream about a world where peace prevailed.  What might that world look like?  And they, with crayons and colored pencils began to create that world together.  In their world they did not litter, they shared their snacks with each other, they went to church and some even spent time meditating in beautiful natural surroundings!  In the discussion that followed these 12-year-old kids came to understand that peace takes some doing! That peace began with each of them, one small act of peace at a time.  They recognized that they had to leave behind old habits that did not bring peace and begin to form new habits of love, care and consideration for themselves, for earth, for each other and for God who is our peace.  The reality of Easter with its renewed hope and promise of new life, of deep peace and joy, takes us beyond the violence and hatred around us, to a place where we can dare to dream of a different re...

Last week I came home to find a small bird lying on the porch—it had clearly flown smack dab into the front window.  I’ve seen it before:  a hapless bird thinks there is a clear flight path due to the reflection of sky or trees instead of a pane of glass.  The last time it happened, I watched in delight as it slowly came-to and eventually flew away, having only been stunned! I picked him up, hopeful because the tiny body was still warm.  But it must have just happened and the impact had, indeed, killed the little guy.  With a heavy heart, I buried him in a tiny grave in the backyard—I absolutely adore birds.  I looked him up and learned that my little friend was called a Dark-Eyed Junco. In Matthew 6 Jesus looks to the birds of the sky to demonstrate proper trust in God.  I have often found comfort in that verse when I’m anxious over trivialities or obsessing about something that’s out-of-my-hands.  The fate of this Dark-Eyed Junco, how...

In 2008, about three years before the beginning of the conflict there, I visited Syria as part of a delegation sponsored by Catholic Relief Services.   More than one million of the four million Iraqis displaced by the US-led war in Iraq found assistance in Syria.   As Catholic women from the USA, we wanted to gather information and raise awareness about these Iraqi refugees. While we were in Damascus, we met both Christian and Muslim women who worked as partners with Catholic Relief Services.   I was especially impressed with the commitment of Sisters of the Good Shepherd there.   Now, given the escalation in the conflict, I find myself wondering about the Sisters, their co-workers and the refugees we met.   I learned recently that the Sisters (who are Syrian) have remained and still continue their work. They work courageously in Damascus and Homs. Horns is a city situated right between the town of Khan Sheikhoun, the object of the recent, deadly chem...