Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

I will always remember a short preaching by Martin, a Dominican student brother and classmate at Aquinas Institute of Theology in St. Louis during my time there as a canonical novice in 2013/14.  Martin, a wonderful brother now known as Ryan Taylor, preached on Matthew 11:28, “Come to me all who labor and are burdened, and I will give you rest.”  Jesus, angry with those laying unnecessary burdens on people perceived as ‘less than’, and frustrated with unrepentant peoples, was reaching out with compassionate love to those struggling and marginalized.              Martin pointed out, however, that Jesus did not promise to remove actual burdens, rather that in and through him, they – and we - are offered rest and respite and hope. Jesus’ full humanity obligates us to offer the same to each other, especially to the most vulnerable among us.   As the Talmud urges, “Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world...

What?   Happy New Year?   Yes, this is how I always feel when a new school year begins.   As a long time teacher, I still love the opening of school, the anticipation of a new year ahead, new faces, new ideas, a new season.     It always feels more like a new year than January first!    This is a time of endings and beginnings, a goodbye to summer and hello to autumn – change is in the air.   It’s a good time to ask myself what changes I need to make, to see what needs to be renewed in me as this year moves forward.    I’m very good at prolonging a project.   How often I say to myself, “I’m going to read that book (or article or website or…) soon” and then realize how long it has been ignored.   Or I realize how I promised someone who was temporarily in a rehab center that I’d be over to visit soon – only to discover those days have passed and she’s been discharged.   This new term, new season, new week asks only o...

I’m not referring to the weeks in the year when Sundays in the Church year are counted by the ordinal numbers 1 through 32, but I’m speaking of those times to be expected in the normal course of living.  In our world at Sinsinawa Mound, 2017 Summer Jubilee celebrations are history, and 2017 Community Days are past.  Now during our everyday days, all of us live into the experiences we had during those stirring, inspiring, and uplifting events of the summer doing what we usually do on an everyday basis. In the midst of those ordinary days, I’ve found highlights animating, heartening, and supporting me.   Several of my sisters came for a visit this past weekend, and we enjoyed each other’s company in the midst of ordinary events.   We really didn’t have any great plans; mostly we sat around the dining room table playing games, telling stories, and laughing a lot in the midst of sharing meals and snacks.   When I came into work this morning, someone greet...

This summer I had the opportunity to take a month off.  I traveled north by car.  This gave me the opportunity to pack some items for delivery to Sinsinawa and plan for several events and visits.  For the drive, I had intended to listen to lectures on spirituality and scripture but the changing scenery really captured my heart.  I drove in silence except with the GPS voice reminded me of my next route change or a car on the side of the road or even that police were spotted ahead. Driving through Kentucky there was a sign that caught my attention.  You know the digital signs set up to given instructions of a lane closure or other related notices.  What was recorded made me laugh (and to be cautious of other drivers):  “This Ain’t A Nascar Raceway!” I wanted to move that sign to Florida and plant it many places on I-95. The sign also made me think of the ways we sometimes go through life events at racing speeds and don’t take time to savor the...

Developing a practice of praying the psalms – the 150 prayer-poems from the Hebrew Scriptures – in the Divine Office has been a gift of Dominican life.  The psalms reflect the broad range of human emotions:  jubilation, anger, gratitude, loneliness, awe, and more.  There is no tidying up raw emotion – the psalms give prayerful voice to all of these feelings authentically and fully.          Recently, I have been appreciative of the psalms of lament which have been used for millennia in praying through grief and loss.   Moreover, as I begin to study Dominican life in earnest here at the Collaborative Dominican Novitiate, I’ve been reminded that St. Dominic prayed and preached with tears.   I was received as a novice and sent to begin my canonical year with an outpouring of loving support and a solid week of joyful celebrations, which filled my heart with gratitude.   Yet, the events of the past week have bro...

There is this cedar tree that overlooks our garden.  Every year it sheds its leaves and produces new ones.  Every year it produces hundreds and hundreds of seeds.  I know.  They fall in our garden and I have to rake them up! When I am out in the garden among the leaves and seeds, this scripture passage about the sower and the seed comes to mind.  I am always struck by the apparent extravagance and wastefulness of God.  Why so many?  Why every year?   But, God's ways are not our ways.  Sometimes we may want to question God's ways.  "Why God?" We may even want to suggest some improvements to God's plan.  "God, surely you could have averted this?"  But God is infinite wisdom!  God works all things for good.  I am slowly tapping into this wisdom.  So whereas in the past I grudgingly raked and bagged the leaves and seeds and put them by the road to be taken away, now I pile them high in a corner of the gard...

Sifting through my clothes and belongings for the umpteenth time gets old and frustrating.  My attempt to strategically pack for yet another move is a struggle.  I’ve gotten quite good at it and each relocation involves shedding a fair amount of “stuff”.  But I focus a lot of attention and thought on sorting-out what I like, what I might need, what I should get rid of, what’s easy to pack, what needs to find a good home and what will be saved and stored.  There’s a seeming dissonance between the vow of poverty and this process of meticulously inventorying and prioritizing lots of belongings.    And then I ponder the prioress’ recent letter about itinerancy—the Dominican call to itinerancy and the different ways that we are each sent.   The forced itinerancy of our sisters in Iraq, for example.  Those ready to “journey to a new place of encounter” in great and difficult ways.  Small nudges like these help me maintain perspective ab...