Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

In the northern hemisphere we're stepping into the new season of spring. It's been a long winter and most of us are ready for a change. Maybe that means stepping with a spring in our bodies as we enjoy the new life around us.  I feel so blessed to live in north central Wisconsin where the earth is still pristine in its beauty and every day offers new wonders. Each day I follow the trail in the woods behind my house and each day I see new plants and birds and even a few little critters that I haven’t seen before.  Each day is a revelation of God’s beauty, goodness, and love. How can I thank God enough for this bounty? What’s in your backyard or in other areas of your life, areas perhaps long-dormant after a harsh winter? Can you name the trees bursting with blossoms? Can you greet the tiny wild flowers smiling up at you as you stroll past them? Can you sing along with the various bird songs that float over the breeze to tickle your ears? Sing with me Psalm 104:...

Time is a funny thing. They say that the best hitters in professional baseball (GO CUBS!) can actually see the seams of the ball as it hurtles toward them at 80, 90, even 100 miles per hour. For the batter, time – in space – almost stands still. At that very same instant, however, what is happening in the stands, the parking lot, in the city, state, country, and world is often going by in a blur. Time moves at warp-speed for some while creeping for others. The paradox of time is that it is both shared universally yet is particular to individual lives and circumstance. While we are all experiencing a time of pandemic, we are not all experiencing it in the same way. Often, those who are hungry, homeless, lonely, and despairing – those on the very margins of society - find the concept of time almost meaningless because they do not have the luxury of hoping or dreaming or thinking of a space in time beyond the moment in which they find themselves often struggling for survival.  ...

“I love the dark hours of my being.”  Rainer Maria Rilke These uncharted times have shown a light on some new self-learning. Like many of you, I have less face-to-face contact with family, friends, colleagues. Even while I have managed to find good healthy activities (i.e. daily exercising, letter writing, phone calls, gardening) I have found this an inwardly quiet time.  Have sorted out my drawers and closets and papers, I find this a time for a new ‘self-awareness’.   I’ve taken to pause with poetry.  I remember in new ways pieces of my family history.  I recall special moments of ministry and service.  And I find myself seeing them in new ways, with a fresh perspective. In a word, I have new HOPE.  This has allowed me to have a new openness, curiosity and wonder.   How is this time deepening your self-understanding?  What are you learning ‘new’ about yourself and your history? What ...

“Practice” – how many times as kids were we told how important it was to practice if we wanted to learn something new!  From piano scales to riding a two-wheeler, from driving a car in the church parking lot to secretly learning new dance moves in our bedrooms, we all had to learn that it took a lot of practice to truly master something we cared about.   We also well remember the tasks or skills we didn’t practice, because we just didn’t care about them! So now we come to this time of an upside down world, where we are called to practice the holy intangibles of patience, charity, and faith in the unknown as well as the personal challenges of self-control and self-discipline.  Probably the best admonition for this season of both Easter and the pandemic is a line from a poem by Wendell Berry:  “ Be joyful, though   you have considered all the facts.  Practice resurrection.”   How we practice  that  is a life-long task, I believe, ...

When I look in the mirror or push my hair out of my eyes, it seems like a big deal.  Yet I know, in the grand scheme of things these days my complaint is rather silly.  During the six weeks we’ve been staying at home I’ve become aware of a lot of different realities—the heroism of health workers and people making sure we have food, the creativity of so many homebound families, the oneness of our world, the need to work together, the beauty of our planet, and the list could go on. So what am I to do?  I could whine a lot, trim my hair myself, try a new hair style, or put the whole issue in a more global perspective.   What are some of your challenges these days?  What is God calling you to do or be these days?  How will your life be changed when this is all over? LouAnne Willette OP Austin, TX

Didn’t it seem like spring would never arrive this year.  And while we were waiting, COVID-19 came to our world and began to wreak havoc among us.  As we watch news reports, we see so much suffering and devastation, and yet at the same time we witness the best in human beings’ care and compassion for one another.  As we ponder the dark days in our lives and continue to hope for more light at the end of this tunnel, we grasp for hope, faith, and ever more insight.   A breakfast conversation with some of our sisters some time ago (before social distancing) led me to believe that suffering does, in fact, make us stronger, give us wisdom, and in the end, enables us to be the women we are today – powerful, durable, intelligent, prudent, hopeful women of faith able to share the “Good News” that God is indeed with us throughout all we are experiencing. So I’ve continued searching for the signs of spring, and I have begun to see my favorite image...

Sequestered, quarantined, moving our ministries and relationships to digital realities, and keeping a social distance in all that we do has not encumbered the Resurrection of Christ.     Nothing could ever impede God’s unending love.     Nothing ever will.     We see Resurrection in our movement from outside to inside, opening up the opportunity to deepen our relationship with the Risen Christ. We see Resurrection out the window and on our daily walks or bike rides as we witness spring happening everywhere, even with some Easter snow.   We see Resurrection in the indomitable courage and strength of the hospital workers and first responders who are bringing healing and hope.  We see Resurrection in the community spirit that fills balconies and porches every night to applaud these heroes and heroines of goodness. We see Resurrection in the naming of long-term disparities and the sin of racism behind them, which this global crisis ...