Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

“God is the newest thing there is, the youngest thing there is. God is the beginning and if we are united to God we become new again.”     (Meister Eckhart) It has been another tough year!  Disparities in healthcare continue as we struggle still with a worldwide pandemic.  Our political scene shows no sign of rendering collaboration with justice anytime soon.  Voting rights, women’s rights, immigration, the death penalty, services for the homeless and hungry – so much is an uphill battle right now.  How do we not start 2022 exhausted, full of fatigue, and lacking compassion??? I think my answer is God.  The ancient, Dominican mystic, Meister Eckhart, called God the beginning and when we are connected to God, we get to start anew too.  I will sit with God each day.  I will soak in God’s goodness.  I will try to listen to God. I am full of hope and energy for 2022.  I trust in God’s love and jus...

In the Pax Christi USA   Guide Our Feet Into the Way of Peace: Reflections for Advent & Christmas 2021,  the reflection for Epiphany Sunday, January 2, tells a story about Robert Louis Stevenson. When he was a little boy, he “would watch the lamplighter walk through the streets…lighting each of the village street lights. ‘Look, Mother,’ he would say. ‘Here comes the man who punches holes in the darkness.’” What a great image for Christmas! In the Incarnation, God and a woman punched a hole in the darkness in birthing Jesus for the world. It’s a delightful idea to think of us, followers of Jesus, punching holes in the darkness as we do works of justice, when we help bring about reconciliation, when we bring peace and remain calm in the midst of the turmoil and division that swirl around us, when we express a spirit of joy even though the world offers so many reasons to be discouraged. In this season celebrating the coming of the Light of the World, let’s invite each other t...

At St. Elizabeth’s Manor, we’re making a journey through Advent using hand labyrinths to help us reflect on and guide us closer to our essence, which is union with the Divine. The first ‘stage’ of this journey, moving from the outer edges of the labyrinth to its center, is one of shedding … shedding whatever impedes growth and movement toward union with the Divine. Shedding doesn’t mean forgetting; rather, it means becoming conscious to the experiences, circumstances, reactions, things that now prevent us from moving forward, to honor the gift they have been in our life for what they can teach us, and then to gently lay them aside, into the arms of God. This is not always easy, and it’s rarely a ‘one and done’. Shedding is a lifelong contemplative practice that can bring us closer to the One we can never shed.   What practices are helping you in your Advent journey? What do you need to shed in order to bring you closer to God?   Kathy Flynn, OP Madison, WI

I am borrowing words from the St. Croix Objibwe, Big Drum People.     I just finished hearing and seeing the eyes and faces of Mitchell La Sarge and Wanda McFaggen     from a PBS Wisconsin series   Tribal Histories.    My heart is full.     What does that have to do with sharing about Dominican life?   Yesterday I participated in an all-day virtual assembly of Sinsinawa to facilitate our ownership of a new land acknowledgment that connects us to the people who enjoyed the place we call The Mound long before we existed. We were led to ponder what will enable Sinsinawa  community to connect with or support Indigenous Resurgence and Justice? Mitchell La Sarge shared a great love and concern for the younger generations of their people, many who are turning to drugs or leaving the traditions of the Big Drum People. He searches the youth to learn what are they passionate about. Dominicans might also ask new generations. What are you passi...

I bet like most people, you appreciate beauty. I have found myself startled by beauty this Fall. I turn the corner and am dazzled by a gloriously red leaved Maple tree. It seems lit up from within. I turn again and my  breathe is taken away by tiny bright yellow leaves hanging on the tips of bare branches and arranged like ornaments.  If we only open our eyes to the magnificence of our natural environment, we can appreciate these manifestations of the Divine and take a moment to appreciate and give thanks for such beauty. The other night I looked up and was stopped in my tracks by the beauty of the crescent moon juxtaposed by Venus, a bright jewel in the dark sky.    And then there is the freshness of dawn, beautifully painted every morning, fleeting but truly glorious. So even though we humans have caused and are causing so much damage to our environment we are still held in mercy and beauty. May we work towards truly appreciating and giving thanks. Doing a bet...

As I was trying to decide on what to write for this blog my mind took to me to the book some of us sisters are presently reading. Ted Dunn’s book,   Graced Crossroads .     In his book Ted writes about religious life today in U.S women congregations.     Ted shares about the “Great Turning.”     In one chapter in which he is considering all that is happening and changing in the world today.     In the book he examines how U.S. women religious congregations are fearing and are they going to survive or not with all the challenges they are facing today.     I see religious life like a living and breathing organic system that is an organization and like many organisms it goes through various changes and how it handles those changes will decide if it survives, dies, or thrive.     This living organism goes through mountain tops and valley experiences.     Now we appear to be in a valley experience.     What ...

One hundred years from now, I hope people will remember this about our community: We were people who spent our lives advocating for the rights of women, people of color, native peoples, immigrants... all the while treating each person we encountered with profound dignity.   Carol Fox, OP