Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

This week the university where I minister is celebrating graduation.     And, it is also the week in which the United States celebrates Mother’s Day.     I saw so many ties between these two events in the past few days.  Students remembering and praising their mothers (and fathers and other family members) for the love and support they received.   Gratitude, study, and the sharing of life with another are examples of what we are called to as followers of Christ.  It is dates like graduation and Mother’s Day that remind us of the gift and privilege that is ours when we pass on what we receive.   When we allow the hope and grace and goodness that we are filled with to overflow onto and into the lives of those around us.  The Catholic Worker Founder, Dorothy Day, said, “the best things to do with the best things in life is to give them away.”   This past week I saw such great examples of what our lives can...

I love water. I love to be by it, on it and in it. Perhaps it’s a genetic predisposition but I find my soul just resonates in the presence of water. It can be smooth as glass, white capped, whipped by wind or tidal waves, large and small with their regular rhythm resonating along a shoreline. I love water’s many presentations and how it interacts with the ever changing light. I am a swimmer. After over a year of not swimming I am gratefully fully vaccinated and have found a local pool where I can book a lane for lap swimming. So, I am thrilled to be back in the water.   It’s a saltwater pool and I have been going early at the beginning of each new day.    I love the interchange between air and water as I move the earth and fire of my body through these precious elements. St Catherine of Siena said, “As the fish is in the water and the water is in the fish, so I am in God and God is in me.”   What a wonderful metaphor for the experience of being enfolded, submerged in...

I never wanted to be a religious sister (nun) because I felt I would never be happy.     This calls me to reflect on what is happiness.     Some say that happiness is a feeling.     It is when you feel good and cheerful about something that happened or is happening in your life.     However, I think that true happiness comes from when you make others happy.     After I went out of my way to assist someone and they unexpectedly tell me how much my helping meant to them.     I experience an unexpected warm feeling inside.     True happiness I think is a sense of fulfilment you feel even if what you did was not acknowledged, yet you know that deep down inside you did and gave of your best to help someone without any conscious ulterior motive.     You did it because it was the right and necessary thing to do at the time. Everyone searches for happiness and many know that true happiness cannot be found in things,...

It has been a struggle to find something uplifting to share in this blog. Although it is resurrection season, the news has been filled with excruciating stories of death and selfishness: the insurrection at the capital; 6 mass shootings since January;    3 million deaths world-wide from covid; the crisis at our southern border. But especially poignant and raw has been the agonizing murders of our black and brown siblings at the hands of law enforcement officers and other violent perpetrators.    How long will we tolerate these injustices? The sin of racism is imbedded deeply in our systems and institutions. But it can be uprooted with persistent and communal decisions and actions. Our Corporate Stance for Anti-Racism challenges us to show up and speak up in the presence of racism whenever it shows up where we are.    In this excerpt from the poem, “Here It Is!,” in her book,  Taking the Arrow Out of the Heart,  Alice Walker urges this further tran...

For most of my 9 years as a Sinsinawa Dominican, I have ministered among women on the margins of society; margins set by poverty, sexism, racism, domestic violence, and addiction among others. I know firsthand the plight of working women and working mothers, having been a single mother myself. I didn’t know what this life would be like but quickly became aware of the many privileges we as women religious have. It was from that limited, therefore faulty, perspective that made me hesitate ministering directly with our elderly sisters – I thought they had everything they needed and had all the help they needed. Thankfully, providence intervened. Last summer, I began ministering with our sisters at an assisted living facility in south-central Wisconsin while taking Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) classes. I see more clearly now something I thought I knew well … that need is everywhere. Hurt and loneliness are everywhere. Longing to live a life of meaning is common to us all.    ...

A few weeks ago the three of us who live together here in Austin, Texas, got our first dose of the vaccine.     After weeks of frustration we received a quick hint from a neighbor’s daughter that vaccines were available, We quickly signed up and the next day we were among the 4000 people who drove over to the site—a huge car racing complex.  We were cheered by many young volunteers who guided us through the maze of cars and cones and eventually to the place where volunteer nursing students gave us the vaccines.  We simply put our arms up to the car window.  Then more volunteer EMT’s waited the mandatory 15 minutes with us. It was a relief to get the vaccine, but I was especially impressed by the many volunteers who made it all possible and easy.  I am so grateful.   As we begin to see the end of the pandemic, what are you grateful for?   Happy Easter LouAnne Willette, OP Austin, TX

As I was preparing to celebrate World Water Day, ahh that precious gift, I came across an article about a special river in Tibet that flows through hidden caverns and then eventually becomes a 3,00+ miles river in India.     That is a long trek.   It reminded me of this ‘sheltering in place ‘waterfall’  so many of us have experienced this past year.  What is this sheltering river we have floated on and in?  What and how does it flow in my/your hearts?     I have slowed down a whole lot this year.  I now take time to notice more and feel more deeply.  I walk more slowly and walk longer distances. Sheltering in place has invited me to do more quiet listening and to savor and pause.  I am less likely to jump to a conclusion.  I can even simply let myself be curious without having to formulate an answer.     Needless to say, this did not happen magically.  I have foun...