Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

Potting around in the garden could prove risky if one is not properly attired.   Inevitably, I would return from the garden with a thorn in my finger, more that a few injections of formic acid from ants resulting in swollen fingers.  Not to mention numerous scrapes and scratches from thorny branches. These garden creatures resent my intrusion into their space, and so up comes these various defense mechanisms. So I have taken to wearing gloves and long sleeved shirts and I cover myself with a generous amount of insect repellant, organic if you please! So what's the lesson there you must be saying.  I am just guessing (smile) that it is the same with us in our human relationships!   It helps to wear gloves of forgiveness and compassion, long sleeves of loving kindness and to cover ourselves with a generous amount of patience! The season of Lent is a good time to 'shop' for these if we don't have them already. Have a blessed Lent. Gail Jagr...

Wednesday  was a mixed-bag.  I joked with a colleague that the ashes on my forehead felt apropos for a vowed celibate on Valentine’s Day.   But the day held the truth of paradox on a much deeper level.   I awoke to the distribution of ashes and a special morning prayer with my community—a wonderful way to begin the day in holy communion.  Later, I got to visit with Congresswomen Maloney (CA) and Jayapal (WA) along with Sr. Simone Campbell to thank them for their service and for scoring 100% on NETWORK’s Voting Record.  Both women—testaments to the strength of love-in-action—inspire and demonstrate the “good” that can manifest on the Hill.   Then the news broke about another mass shooting at a school in Florida—17 students killed—and the grieving set-in.  A reminder that evil is also manifested on the Hill in the form of harmful policies, blame, greed, and vitriol.   I’ve never felt more in...

These February days in Wisconsin are pretty cold!  I imagine it was just as cold during February nearly 170 years ago when a small group of young women made a decision with significant implications.  They decided to remain together in their small, fledgling community. They were all novices: Sisters who had not yet made vows. They were young: the oldest was 32 years of age; the youngest, 17 years.  Seven months after their fateful decision, four of this group remained to make their first vows together. These four young women, Margaret, Mary, Judith and Ellen, took new names and became our “cornerstone” Sisters: Clara, Ignatia, Josephine and Rachel. The word, “cornerstone”, means a feature on which a particular thing depends or is based.   Together with the Dominican priest who founded our Sinsinawa Congregation, Samuel Mazzuchelli OP, these women launched a project that continues today.    The qualities that we recognize in these Cornerstones are ...

Saying “yes” has been pretty easy for me, (although the call to religious life later in life mystified and puzzled me. For a while, no response made sense…until ‘making sense’ didn’t matter.) I’ve been reflecting on my ‘yeses’ lately, wondering if some were offered too easily; spoken sincerely but without depth of thought; offered with good intentions but with a failing memory of how the proverbial Road to Hell is paved. There are so many urgent needs in the world today that require a compassionate response – by someone, by anyone, by everyone. Saying ‘no’ seems implausible, cold, unkind, the antithesis of an authentic call to religious life; to any authentic life, really. Yet I am discovering that within every ‘yes’ is often an unspoken ‘no’.  Every ‘yes’ proclaimed contains a benefit, but also a cost; one that can dilute the impact of the ‘yes’.  It might be burnout, frenzied living, a sense of superficiality - of spreading oneself too thin. We simply cannot do ...

Is anything really ordinary? It’s January and it’s raining and 50 degrees.   If you’re a sports fan, it’s an extraordinary season of playoffs and tournaments; if you’re a movie buff, it’s award season.   But what about “Ordinary Time” in our liturgical life?   In our daily life?   Is there really such a thing?   In the late ‘70’s the novel Ordinary People became a best seller – about a family who tried to appear ordinary but underneath seethed with suffering, fear, and loss.   How often do we say or think our day was “just ordinary” when, if we look closely, we could find all kinds of small ways that grace broke in.   In his homily on New Year’s, Pope Francis used a phrase that I think applies to all of us ordinary people who do ordinary things, but try to do them in faith, with the gospel as our guide.   Pope Francis said that it’s these everyday people, the ordinary people, who are “the artisans of the common good.”     Now there’s...

The title of this reflection may lead you to believe I am musing about the sunlight that has peeked through the cold, cold winter days of freezing rain, sleet, snow, and heavy clouds.  Though this pattern has described the last several weeks of the weather we’ve experienced lately, I am really contemplating a conversation I encountered with several of my Dominican sisters during breakfast recently. A couple of sisters shared stories about difficult times (dark, dark days, weeks, months, and even years) from their early lives in the congregation.   Though I didn’t share my own story at that particular time, I understood the pain and anguish those sisters must have undergone. As we continued pondering those experiences, one sister noted that the suffering did, in fact, make us stronger, gave us wisdom, and in the end enabled us to be who are today – powerful, durable, intelligent, prudent, hopeful women of faith able to share the “Good News” of Jesus with those who wi...

Attending Taize Prayer on January 1, 2018 If you live in the Northern Hemisphere and anywhere in the Midwest, this has been a very cold winter.  Cold is good for lots of reasons.  Our Earth needs the cold of winter.  And, as Dominicans, it is our calling to bring love and joy and hope to cold places.   Here are just a few ways I have experienced the warmth of my Dominican Sisters during this chilly winter season: Early morning cups of coffee with my Crowd (that is nun language for another sister who entered the same year you did) Phone calls in which other Sisters and I have shared our hearts and souls Trips to the gym Being welcomed home A FB message inviting me to more communication An invitation to Taize Prayer Warm hugs Sharing dessert Fun notes in the mail Sharing clothes New Year’s Eve Prayers together Phone calls What about you?    Where are you finding love and joy and hope in this season? Peggy R...