Catherine's Cafe Vocation Blog

On Labor Day I labored to create more useful spaces in my bedroom.     The box containing books “saved to read” had been covered with a colorful afghan and many items     “To read some time” were stacked on top. Now the box is gone and “the books to read”     face me with their inviting titles visible. I found out the day after Labor Day is called “National read a book day” What a great coincidence!     I am reminded that an essential element of Dominican life is STUDY. I pledge to create a sustainable study time in my day, my week, my life. Now I am studying methods of forgiveness proposed by Robert Enright. In addition, I am reading  No Future without Forgiveness  by Desmond Tutu.  Even my fun book (light reading before bed) is  All the Forgivenesses , a novel by Elizabeth Hardinger.  All this study is helping to prepare some input time for the religious leader caucus of MOSES (Madison Organizing in Strength, E...

We do not use this word too often. Yet we have a holiday which celebrates this ‘old’ word that describes our more common work. Why have a day to celebrate ‘labor’? Might it be so we might know the dignity associated with what we do?   There is labor at our birth. There is labor when we learn and study. There is labor when we choose to live out and act on our commitments. There is labor when we pray/meditate. What is the Spirit teaching me in these works? There is labor in relationships. What do each of this ‘labors invite you and I to ponder.   Of late the work in relationships has been much on my mind and heart. Sheltering in place during Covid has given me time and opportunity to reflect on how I show up for relationship with others and with myself. In pondering this I have been laboring to know the Holy, the Sacred in others and in myself. I have needed this reflective work of bowing before this Mystery of whom others are and who I am. It is indeed a laboring of being more ...

I’m sure you, like me, can tell by the change in the air, the amount of sunlight, that summer is leaving us again.  This ease into autumn is a gift that triggers reflection on change, on time, on journeys ended and begun.     I’m reading a memoir by Kathryn Schulz entitled   Lost & Found .     She divides her small book into three sections:   “Lost” – “Found” – “And.”     I relish those divisions, especially the last one.     How much of our lives is filled with “and” – we think we are headed one way and then we realize we need to rethink; we are absolutely sure we are right about an issue or a plan and then something reaches our mindset and we realize we need to rethink.     I hear echoes of the Gospels in these three words…how many encounters of Jesus embrace “lost, found, and” – choices laid out before cured lepers and rich young people and sophisticated Pharisees and those possessed by the evils of their day. ...

Where I dwell, I witness Creation's resources being shared. Deer, rabbit, squirrel, sandhill, oriel, frog and me. Turkeys strut. Red wings and mourning doves eat from the same table. Wild flowers, grasses, weeds and trees converse in the wind. Fireflies blink to the starlit sky.  Diversity, thankful for the other's gift, enabling all to live. Together we pray and converse, sharing the collective wisdom. Unknowingly or perhaps knowingly, we weave a tapestry that reveals the Devine's portrait! Without God's presence Eden's Garden in the Cosmic  womb would not exist.   How do you contribute to the Community's tapestry? Will you join the sisterhood?   Caroline Sullivan, OP DePere, WI

I believe with all my being I was called by God to Religious life and to a life of prayer. Prayer has always been a regular/consistent part of my life.  As I got older prayer became what I desired, not what I should or ought to do. I favored published prayers for a while and overtime an intimate prayer life developed. My Grandmother was a great spontaneous prayer, so I borrowed some of her phrases and made them mine.   I believe my prayers are conversations with God therefore, I look/wait for a response. Sometime the response is a change in attitude, a feeling of calm or questions.    I believe God’s call was not only a call to Religious life but also an invitation to a closer relationship with God.  My prayer life has grown as a Sinsinawa Dominican and my relationship with God continues to grow through daily prayer.    Pat Rogers, OP Glendale, WI

As we began Community Days 2022 this week with great anticipation of being together – albeit virtually - we were challenged by this statement of Parker Palmer:   “Before you tell your life what you intend to do with it,  ask your life what it intends to do with you.”   It really is an illusion to think we are in total control of our lives. We are part of the unfolding universe, living in relationship with everything that makes up the Earth community, spinning in a tiny part of the Milky Way Galaxy, among millions of galaxies, some of which are coming into view for the first time through the lens of the James Webb Telescope.   Can we learn from the universe what our lives intend to do with us? We are inextricably tied to  planet Earth, and we are called to be her caregivers and life-givers and co-creators with our God. Whatever else we intend to do with our lives, it will be in the context of that primary responsibility. May we accept it with gratitude and j...

What do you do when you have so much to do and so little time? Often I begin to “burn the candle at both ends.” This is dangerous. I chip away some of my prayer time in the morning and stay up late to do one more thing. Result? I’m exhausted and overwhelmed. This is when burnout can happen.   In times of this kind of stress I “stop” and pay attention as I ask myself: What do I need right now? What I needed was already on my schedule for today—a spiritual guidance session. But did I have time for that now?   Thank God I decided to save time and met via ZOOM rather that traveling to meet with her in person. As I shared what was going on for me and how I was feeling she listened compassionately, asked a few questions, and soon I was able see my way and found inner peace, no longer overwhelmed.    When you are overwhelmed do you have a “go-to” person to help you navigate and refocus? What a difference it makes.   Mary Therese Johnson, OP Pastoral Minister at Sinsina...