The Dominican Brother: 3 Brother Angel F. Méndez Montoya

Movement, and pioneering new frontiers, is written into the life story and faith journey of Br Angel Méndez Montoya OP. A professional dancer by training, a professor of theology, and a son of the Province of St Martin de Porres in the USA, Br Angel is very much at the forefront of breaking new ground for the Dominican vocation as a co-operator brother.

Br Angel was born in Baja California into a family for whom Catholicism was part of their cultural heritage but who were "not particularly fervent". From his childhood, Angel loved reading and had a thirst for study and learning. He first moved to Mexico City, where he now lives and works, to study philosophy at university. However while he was there, he began to study contemporary dance and this became very important in his life, alongside philosophy. His natural talent attracted the attention of a professional dance company in Mexico City who invited him to join them. For a time, he danced professionally under the guidance of the company's award-winning choreographer, while at the same time studying, but eventually he decided to put aside academia and pursue a career in dance as he was still young and agile enough to do so. Angel says this was a "painful decision but I realised that I could come back to study".

While performing in Austin with this dance company, he was talent spotted again, and the director of the dance department at the University of Texas (UT) invited him to move to Austin and pursue a degree in dance. He says: "It was hard for me to leave my dance company, but I took the risk, learned English while taking up a new life in dance at the University of Texas in Austin". Full of energy, he combined language studies with his liberal arts course in dance and dancing professionally with the Sharir Dance Company, hosted by UT. He would rehearse every evening and perform during the weekends.

Br Angel says that already then he "had an intuition of a vocation, a desire to give of himself to other people". During these years in Austin, he came across the work of the Dominican painter, Fra Angelico, which resonated with his interest in the arts as an expression of God's beauty and he became very interested in a spirituality of the arts. He was very attracted by the idea of Fra Angelico as a religious person who was also an artist, and so Angel dreamt that he would one day follow in Angelico's footsteps and integrate his art with his faith and preaching. So, Angel began looking for religious orders in Austin and he discovered a small community of Dominican friars, and since Fra Angelico was also a Dominican, he decided to acquaint himself with them.

This community of friars hosted what Angel calls a kind of postulancy or lay community in which students could live alongside the friars and share their life. In this welcoming community, Angel learnt about St Dominic and the Order without any pressure to join. He also learnt to cook as a form of self-giving to the community. Cooking was to become one of Angel's other passions in life.

Just as Angel had taken a risk in moving from Mexico to Texas, so he decided to trust in the Lord and take a risk of trying his vocation with the Dominicans and he joined the Southern Province of the USA in 1993. He was particularly encouraged by the Vocation Director, who was open to Angel's dream, and when fr Timothy Radcliffe came visiting as Master of the Order, Angel was greatly encouraged by Timothy to pursue his vocation as a dancer and a friar. Moreover, Timothy's letters which spoke highly of the co-operator brothers' vocation moved Angel to consider this vocation rather than the life of a clerical Dominican brother. These formation years were busy: Angel studied for a triple Masters in Divinity, Theology and Philosophy at St Louis University, he was a guest artist at Washington University where he taught and danced, and he engaged in pastoral work with migrant communities. At this time he also began to experiment with integrating dance with theology.

Angel was very much inspired by St Dominic's Nine Ways of Prayer and he says: "With dance, the body is the instrument of self-expression. United with prayer, the body is the means of uniting with God. We don't put aside our body when praying for prayer is intensely somatic (bodily)". He found that in praying with his body through dance, he was no longer performing on a stage, as he was accustomed to, but rather he experienced "moving beyond the ego ... praying and praising God with the body".

He acknowledges that his dream of combining dance and prayer, and indeed to preach through dance has sometimes met with great suspicion and opposition. In 2000 he danced during Vespers on St Dominic's Day during the General Chapter of the Order. He recalls that "some were scandalised and walked out ... but many liked it and some were moved to tears". Angel notes that before the Enlightenment, the present day dichotomy of body and soul did not exist, and his studies led to the discovery of a tradition of liturgical dance that dated to the Patristic age. He argues that "the post-modern discourse now criticises the hegemony of reason and wants to return to the body", thus his work and preaching through dance is "an opportunity to recover the the body-soul mutual constitution".

Apart from his interest in dance, Br Angel has pursued his passion for food, and with the encouragement of Fergus Kerr OP, he embarked on a PhD in philosophical theology under John Milbank. Unusually for a co-operator brother, he obtained permission to pursue academia at this high level and won a scholarship from the Hispanic Theological Initiative, sponsored by the Pew Charitable Trusts. His PhD took him from Virginia to Cambridge, where he finished writing up while resident in the Dominican priory in Cambridge. There he was Scholar in Residence at the University's faculty of divinity. While in Cambridge he worked in Fisher House with a Bible Study group exploring food in the Bible. Angel says he learned a lot from his students, and his group was a great success. A Cambridge undergraduate who joined this group is now a Dominican brother studying in Oxford. Angel reflects on his time in Cambridge: "the Priory was a beautiful place for writing because of the chance to celebrate the daily Eucharist in community and also to cook for the community and to observe others cooking as an act of self-gift". Upon completion of his doctoral dissertation, Angel was invited to teach philosophy and theology at the Universidad Iberoamericana, a Jesuit-run university in Mexico City. He has been a professor there since 2007. Angel's dissertation was also unanimously accepted without content corrections for publication by Blackwell Publishing, and he recently gave a talk based on this book in a colloquium on food at Blackfriars Hall.

Finally, Br Angel offers some reflections on his vocation: "Normally a lay brother has domestic tasks, so people were negative about the idea of a lay brother who was an intellectual and an academic. But the life of the lay brother is centred on preaching; this is the heart of the charism. It should be preaching in any way, whatever one’s gifts are. We should not pigeonhole a lay brother’s vocation and role but allow it to develop one’s gifts - whether through administration or housekeeping or study or arts etc. The lay brother's vocation is very flexible and this should be preserved.

Often the fear is that there is no programme or model for the lay brother's vocation but this is a strength in so far as the brother serves the Order and the Church. The main difference with the priestly vocation is the sacramental life of the clerical brothers. In the General Chapter in Krakow (2004) it was stated that all Dominican brothers are equal; what unites us is our vows and profession. If a friar is called to reach out beyond the boundaries of sacramental life, so he should think of becoming a lay brother. Some brothers have expressed that they became priests because of the prestige or because of the fear of not being recognised.

I really hope and have this faith that what I do now will have some benefit for the future of the lay brothers' vocation. Someone has opened the bridges, and shown that it can be done. I believe I am sowing seeds for the future and I know I may not live to see the fruit".

The Dominican Brother: 2 Brother Paul Byrd

Just yesterday I was sitting at a table in the gathering space of the Newman Center of the University of New Mexico talking to a young graduate student seriously discerning a vocation to Dominican priesthood. Sometimes, walking with someone in his vocation discernment can be a heavy task; but at other times, things lighten up, and you get to hear a guy day dream about what it will be like to be a priest. My young friend was thinking of the weddings and baptisms that he would be asked to do, and the joy on his face made me smile.

Unlike my friend, I never had those kinds of day dreams when I was discerning my vocation to the Dominican Order. Like all Dominican friars, I had a desire to preach, that’s true, but at the heart of my vocation was an even greater desire — the desire to give my life completely to God. For me, giving one’s life to God is what professing vows as a religious is all about. The giving of self to God is caused by an intense love for him. This love is so strong that not to become a religious would be like a man not marrying the woman he’s madly in love with which doesn’t make any sense.

This approach to explaining religious brotherhood may come as a surprise to many who think that having a vocation is primarily about function, that is, what one does. I reject this idea, and say that religious life is first and foremost a way of life designed to help a person shed all obstacles to his proper relationship to God and neighbor. This is how I understand the text that played such an important part in my discernment: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell everything you have, give to the poor … and then follow me” (Matthew 19:21). The vows allow a person to let go of particular things so that he may freely give himself to others, and freely receive others in return.

Br Paul Byrd is a Cooperator Brother of the Dominican Central Province of the United States and is currently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico

The Dominican Brother: 1 Brother Vincent Cook

On the 4th February the Prefect of the Congregation for Institutes of Religious Life and Societies of Apostolic Life announced plans for a new document to highlight the importance to religious life and to the Church in general of lay brothers, members of religious orders that take vows but are not ordained as priests.

The Dominican Order has been blessed over the centuries with a great number of co-operator (or 'lay') brothers who have contributed to the mission of the Order in a great variety of ways. In the coming days on Godzdogz contemporary co-operator brothers will reflect on how they serve Christ as Dominicans, as well as offering more general thoughts on the vocation itself.

We begin with our very own Brother Vincent, born in 1924, professed in 1948, and, thank God, still going strong. Below is a transcript of an interview in which he was asked to comment on his vocation to be a co-operator brother and why he decided to join the Dominicans:

"I first started thinking about becoming a lay brother at school. We used to have a sister that read to us before we went to bed, it was a boarding school you see, she had a beautiful reading voice. She used to tell us about all the various religious orders. Even from that time I wanted to be a lay brother. When I was a boy I used to be always singing, my Dad used to say to me "you'll be a priest one day!", I said "no, I want to be a lay brother!" I suppose because the jobs we used to do at school, cleaning the dormitories and classrooms, that sort of thing, were quite similar to the life of a lay brother as it was at that time. I used to clean the playroom first thing every morning, I tried to make sure that there was always a vase of flowers there, daisies, that sort of thing. They used to have lay sisters in the school, they didn't call them that, but that's what they were. They used to work in the kitchens, in the sacristy. I remember Sr. Cecile used to work in the sacristy, she was deaf as a post!

When I left school, I didn't forget about being a lay brother, but I got more interested in the world. I trained as a brushmaker, and had quite a good wage for those days. When I was twenty I told a priest that I wanted to be a lay brother, he suggested that I work as a caretaker in the local parish youth centre and then he'd try and get me in somewhere. I joined the Dominicans after meeting Fr Fabian Dix OP, he came to speak at the youth group and I chaired the meeting. Afterwards I got talking to him.

At the time I joined the idea of being a lay brother was that the brother would continue to use their trade or profession in the priory, or helping out in other houses. This did happen, but not enough in my opinion. A lot of our work was housework, sacristy work, and in the kitchens, that sort of thing. At that time we also used to look after the priests' rooms. On one occassion Br James broke the Prior's chamber pot. The Prior asked him if it was still usable, so Br James thought for a moment then said, "it depends if you are left or right handed"! I always understood our role as giving the priests more time to concentrate on their mission, you know, taking work off their hands so they had more time for preaching.

We also had two half hours of meditation and prayer. I learnt the Little Office of Our Lady in about two weeks. We also had conferences in the evening, that sort of thing. One of the priests would come and give a talk on something. As an extra I used to go through the catechism with the children on Sundays, I also used to prepare them for Holy Communion. The expectations were so different back then to what they are now, but it is still important to have a proper novitiate, a good foundation in prayer and the life .

I think the part of the life that I've enjoyed the most is being in choir, singing the office. I've always enjoyed Compline. As for the most difficult part, the winter of 1947 was very cold. I remember, because I was out walking, it started snowing on the Epiphany [6th January] . The snow didn't completely melt until the 16th March! On the 17th March I was challenged to swim in the lake. There were a few of us brothers. One started counting: one, two, three. I was the only one stupid enough to jump! The summer after that was terrific."

A Compass Weekend

This weekend fr Robert Verrill OP visited Worth Abbey to speak to this year's Compass participants about Dominican life. Compass was set up in 2004 and was envisaged as a way of helping people discern whether or not they had a religious vocation. fr Robert was a Compass participant back in 2005 and found it an invaluable experience in helping him decide to join the Dominicans. He writes:

'It was lovely to come back to Worth and speak to the current Compass participants. This year there are six of them, three men and three women. All of them have full time jobs, but since last September, they've been coming to Worth Abbey once a month for a weekend retreat to learn about various aspects of religious life.

'When I first started thinking about becoming a religious, I also had a full time job. At the time I remember feeling at a total loss as to how I could go from being a software engineer to a religious. Religious life was just a thought - the prospect of actually doing anything about it was very daunting. There was a combination of fear of rejection as well as the fear I might get sucked into something I was totally unsuited to. Before I found out about Compass, I didn't feel there was anyone I could confide in, so when I stumbled across the Compass website, it was clear the programme was offering just what I needed: it was a safe supportive environment, one in which I could discuss my fears and anxieties about religious life and where I could obtain the information I needed in order to make an informed and free decision as to whether this life truly was for me. Starting Compass was like coming into the warmth from the cold. I no longer felt alone. I was able to continue working but at the same time I could remain fully focused on trying to understand God's plan for me.


'The process of going from having no religious aspirations at all to joining the Dominicans only took two years. Without Compass, I'm sure this process would have taken much longer. I would probably still be a software engineer who occasionally had fantasies about religious life. I will always be grateful to the people involved with Compass. They helped to give me confidence to take the plunge. Now I'm in the position where I can give the best years of my life to the Dominicans.

'The discernment process can be a very anxious time, a time of great confusion and fear. But it can also be a time of great excitement, a time when one discovers the richness and diversity of the Catholic Church, when one learns really to trust in God's love and let go of the things that prevent us from being what He wants us to be. Please pray for this year's Compass participants in their journey.'

A Dominican Vocation Story

I was brought up as a Catholic but like so many people drifted away from the faith when I left home. Initially sheer laziness was to blame, but over time I simply stopped believing.

A second year lecture course at University shook me out of my complacency. For the first time I began to critically examine the assumptions on which I based my life and an uncomfortable thought lodged itself in the back of my mind: Why lead a good life? Why not lead a bad one? It occurred to me that if God did not exist then, to borrow an idea from Dostoyevsky, everything is permitted. If God did not exist, then the morality society presented seemed to me to be just someone else’s opinion, an opinion that I was free to reject. This got me thinking: How should I live? And beyond that I found a deeper question: What do I want?

Fortunately I was at this time living with some Christians. Through a combination of their embodiment of gospel values and my own thought and reflection I slowly realized that deep down what I really wanted was to love, to love people but also (to my surprise) to love God. I realized that I had been lying to myself and that in fact I did believe. I uncovered a craving for a relationship with Christ, but all I seemed to have at this time was a cold intellectual assent to the ‘God hypothesis’ and a sense of incompleteness. On the advice of my Christian friends I began to pray for faith. For nine months I prayed the rosary everyday: nothing happened. I was beginning to get frustrated when someone suggested that what I really needed was a retreat so I booked myself in for a young adults weekend at Worth Abbey.

That weekend at Worth had a profound effect on me. I was deeply impressed by the monks, by the totality of their commitment to Christ, by the peace and stillness of their monastery. Towards the end of the retreat I went to confession and after I received absolution something inside me changed. My abstract belief in God moved from my head to my heart and became a living faith.

From this point onwards I was seriously entertaining the prospect of joining a religious order. Initially I was drawn to monasticism and after graduating from university I joined a lay Benedictine community in Brighton for a year with a view to perhaps entering a monastery at the end of it. However, over the course of that year the many pastoral projects that I became involved in demonstrated that, for me at least, God was to be found in engaging with the world rather than fleeing from it. A monastic vocation is a beautiful gift, but it was not the gift that God was offering me.

I turned my attention to the Dominicans whom I had met as a student and whose spirituality seemed to be an attractive blend of prayer, community life, study, and mission. I visited some of the priories in England and felt at home. This encouraged me to talk seriously with the vocations director about joining the Order. He suggested that I spend some time living and working as a volunteer in a Dominican house in the Philippines to try and absorb something of the spirit of the institution. Here I grew to love the Order and I returned to England bursting with enthusiasm and eager to sign up. The English Province accepted my application, and I was clothed in the habit in September 2008. So far I have been very happy, I pray that God will give me the grace to continue in this life to final vows and beyond.

Br Nicholas Crowe OP

A Dominican Vocation

I suppose I must have been about twelve or thirteen when the thought first came to me of giving my life to the service of God in some sort of exciting and radical way; at the time I was an Anglican, and the only way I knew of to do this was to become a clergyman. Such thoughts as these led me to think and find out in more depth about what I believed, and this process of investigation eventually resulted in me deciding to become a Catholic, which I did just as I was leaving school; at the time I wondered whether perhaps it was to the Catholic Church, rather than priesthood, that God had been leading me all along.

My first year at university, however, which was also my first year as a Catholic, led me to conclude that this was not the case. The university chaplaincy provided a place where I could deepen my knowledge of the Faith, and also taught me the joy of belonging to a vibrant Christian community: indeed, some of us spent so much time there, it was almost like a religious community! And during this time, rather than going away, that sense of some sort of vocation to the priesthood became stronger, and, in a context where there were other people thinking about the same thing, it came to seem more realistic too.

So I decided to go and speak to my chaplain, and his first suggestion was to go and take a look at the Dominicans: this was very convenient, because there happens to be a Dominican priory in Cambridge, where I was studying, and a couple of the friars, as well as some Dominican sisters were involved in the chaplaincy (indeed, since I left, a Dominican, fr. Alistair Jones, has become assistant chaplain there). All the Dominicans I met seemed like very interesting people, and at the same time, what I came to learn of the Order appealed to me: the focus on preaching and apostolic work, nourished by a religious life in community, seemed to me like the best of both worlds (an opinion which I, unwittingly at the time, shared with St Thomas Aquinas).

The next step, then, was to get in touch with the Vocations Director, who gave me various things to read about the Order, as well as encouraging me to visit some of the other houses of the province: this only confirmed the impression that I was on to something here. Then, as part of my degree (in modern languages), I had to spend a year in Russia, where I was able to see the Faith being lived in very different surroundings and also, during the time I spent in St Petersburg, to get to know the only Dominican community in Russia.

I returned to England for the final year of my studies fairly sure that I wanted to apply for the Order: I knew this sense of vocation wasn’t going to go away, and if I was wrong, the only way to get rid of it would be to try it out and see it didn’t work, while if I was right, then it would obviously make sense to apply. In either case, there seemed to be no advantage in delay, so I applied for admission that year. After various interviews, I was accepted, receiving the habit the September after I graduated.

A vocation to serve in the Church as a priest or religious is something public, confirmed by the public action of the Church, and so I can only be sure of it when, if it is indeed God’s will, the Provincial receives my solemn profession and, later, the Bishop lays on his hands in ordination: in the meantime, I’m praying that God will indeed grant me this grace, because so far I’ve absolutely loved being a Dominican. Please pray for me too!

Br Gregory Pearson is a first year student.

Vocations Fair at St Gregory's

On 21 January, Dominican students from Blackfriars, Oxford took part in a Vocations Fair organised by St Gregory the Great school. Over a dozen religious orders and congregations including the Dominican Sisters of St Joseph were represented in the school hall. Small groups of secondary school students moved from one stall to another in successive 3-minute periods, where they were given a short introduction to the particular religious order and its charism.


The children asked us a range of questions from the usual 'Why did you choose to be a Dominican?', to the more thought-provoking: 'How do you know the devil exists?'. Many were also interested in the Dominican habit and its use.

The school has had three days of promoting the vocation to priesthood and the religious life this week, and the Vocations Fair was the final event. It was a tiring but stimulating day, and it was a delight to meet the children as well as other religious from the Birmingham archdiocese and further afield. 

A Dominican Vocation

I first began thinking about my vocation when I was sixteen. I grew up in a Catholic family with my mum and dad and two sisters and I was the youngest in my family. I was an altar boy from the age of seven til 18 when I left home to go to university. Having the example and support of my family has been crucial for me at every stage in my life.

When I was fifteen my sister bought me the new, as it was then, Catechism of the Catholic Church and after going through it I decided that I agreed with everything that it said. Having reached this awareness it was clear to me how my life must be. Since I now knew for myself that the Catholic faith was the truth, I had no choice but to live by it. By the time I left Sixth Form College I had already discerned that I might be made for community life, it was something that seemed very attractive to me. However, I took for granted that whatever I did with my life I must first go to University and get a degree so as to complete my education. I decided to study theology, not because I was thinking of my vocation but simply because I found it interesting. By this point my sister had moved to London and I very much enjoyed visiting her there and so I decided that I would like to study there.

After my first term in London I went to the Verbum Dei community on the Isle of Wight for a 5-day silent retreat over the New Year period. This was a life-changing experience for me. In the silence I found the time to really pray and grew to know and love God so much more. Time spent in adoration before the Blessed Sacrament was a key part of the retreat and this was and still is the most helpful form of prayer for me. Through this time of adoration and the talks given by the sisters I came to truly know and love Christ present in the Eucharist for the first time in my life. I returned there again for a Holy Week retreat the following Easter and it was then that I felt loud and clear the call to the priesthood. I felt called to be a religious priest but I didn’t know which Order I should join.

In my second year at University we got a new chaplain who was a Dominican. I had been elected president of the Catholic Society and so I ended up spending a lot of time with the chaplain. It was the first time that I had come across a young priest I could easily relate to, he was only 29 when I first met him and we became friends. I went to visit the priory in London to talk to him about the Society and fell in love with the place the moment I walked in the door. The priory in London has a long stone cloister leading down to the church that feels more like a small cathedral than a large parish church and I immediately felt a sense of belonging. I loved to join with the friars singing the Divine Office, morning and evening prayer, and felt more attracted to the Order the more I found out about it. I felt moved to give my life for others, to offer the sacrifice of the Mass for the salvation of souls and to live a life trying to love my brothers in community.

After my degree I was recommended to spend a year out as I was only 22 when I graduated. I decided to spend a year volunteering in the Philippines with Dominican Volunteers International. I lived in a Dominican priory with three friars in a very poor area, slums really, on the edge of Manila and taught religious education in the Church primary school and catechism in the secular state school. While I was there I applied to join the Order and was accepted. I moved to Cambridge in September 2006 to begin my novitiate. I made simple profession for three years in September 2007, after which I came to Oxford to begin my studies for the priesthood. I feel truly blessed to have been given the chance to live out my calling. Please pray for me as I continue on the road to the priesthood.

Brother Daniel Jeffries is a first year student.

Lenten Vocations Day for Men and Women

“God Writes Straight with Crooked Lines”

Almost a decade ago, I was undertaking a pre-seminary year in a parish in west Yorkshire, as a part of my training for the diocesan priesthood. One Sunday in the sacristy before Mass, a teenage server who occasionally served at the Dominican parish in Leicester told my parish priest that he wanted to be a Dominican. I had never heard of them, and when my parish priest told the lad that he had to be very clever to become a Dominican, I wondered who these Dominicans thought they were. After all, I said to my parish priest later (and not wanting to lose out to these unknown Dominicans), even a diocesan priest has to be rather clever!

So began God’s way of writing straight with crooked lines in my life.

My next encounter with the Dominicans came in the form of a statue of St Dominic which I saw in the window of the CTS bookshop in Newcastle. I thought it was a statue of a Benedictine monk contemplating the Scriptures, and as I had (my brethren will say, have) a rather romantic view of religious life, I bought the statue as a reminder of what I then felt was the religious calling I had given up in order to serve the Catholic people of the north. I remember taking that statue to the counter, and when the saleswoman told me that a statue of St Dominic was a rather rare thing, I wondered again, who is this Dominic. I bought the statue anyway because, I told myself, it looks like a monk reading and that was what I intended it to be!

As I progressed in my theological training, I developed a fascination for Aquinas, whom I had heard about but had little opportunity to study in the seminary. As he seemed like ‘forbidden fruit’, I endeavoured to read parts of the Summa theologiae, although I was slightly daunted by the Scholastic language and style. Nevertheless I had no lasting impression that this saintly doctor of the Church was a Dominican.

After three years in the seminary, I left in search of something more fulfilling. One night, sitting in a presbytery in north Yorkshire, and having prayed for weeks for direction from God, I started typing the names of various religious orders into the computer. Racking my memory for every order I could think of, I recalled that day in the sacristy, and typed ‘Dominicans’. As I did so, I thought I probably wasn’t clever enough, but as I started reading the vocations page of the English Dominican site, I actually felt this inner warmth and excitement as I recognised the family to which God had been calling me all these years. And He had left these unexpected little signs along the way, from the first sighting I had of St Catherine’s head-relic while on holiday with my family in Siena to the statue of St Dominic in my room in front of which I used to light candles.

That Easter, I went on retreat to a Benedictine abbey to discern if I was called to share their life, but, while I was there I started reading every Dominican-authored book I could find in the library. It was a period of intense discovery and prayer as I began to wonder if I might actually be called to become a Dominican. Many of Timothy Radcliffe’s letters as Master inspired me and towards the end of my time in the abbey, I felt that God was certainly asking me to try my vocation as a Dominican. As if in confirmation, that evening when I came down to Vespers, in processed a white-habited Dominican along with the Benedictines.

I initiated a series of visits to various Dominican houses and discovered the joy, prayerfulness and intellectual stimulation of our life, and after a year ‘on mission’ as a lay Dominican Volunteer in the Philippines, I entered the novitiate in Cambridge. God still writes with crooked lines, but He also continues to deepen my love for the vocation He has given me among this band of preaching brothers and I thank Him daily for the “grace of a Dominican vocation”.

Br Lawrence Lew is a second-year student.

A Dominican Vocation

Whilst I have always been a Catholic, for most of my life I had great difficulty in seeing myself as the sort of person who could become a priest. I decided my true calling was to be a mathematician, so I duly went off to Cambridge to study mathematics.

It was whilst finishing my PhD in Cambridge that I spent 9 months living in the Dominican lay community. The lay community consisted of about six lay students living alongside six Dominican friars and sharing in their prayer life. I really enjoyed life there, and the thought did occur to me that maybe I could become a Dominican. But I hesitated. There were so many other things I wanted to do. Religious life would be fine if only I could pick and choose the bits I liked and reject the bits I didn’t. So instead I got a job as a software engineer in Somerset. Maybe there I could settle down, buy a house and have a family.

Two years into my job, I was listening to the radio and a journalist was saying that there was a crisis in religious vocations. I wondered whether there really was a crisis. Maybe there was only if people like myself didn’t respond to God’s call. Maybe God was calling me but I just wasn’t listening. So over the next few days I listened. It was only then I really started to understand how much God loved me and how much I loved God. I didn’t need to get married to be a complete person. My faith in Jesus Christ made me a complete person. For the first time in my life, becoming a priest was something I really wanted to do.

At this stage I didn’t know what sort of priest I should become, so I got in touch with Worth Abbey which runs a religious discernment programme. Over the next year, I went to Worth Abbey once a month. This really helped me discover how I could best serve God, and I soon started to look at the Dominicans. It wasn’t just that I enjoyed living with Dominicans, but I really believed in their mission statement – preaching for the salvation of souls. Being a fairly shy person, the thought of being in the Order of Preachers was fairly daunting, but I felt I didn’t have to rely on my own strength – God would give me the strength to do His will.

So here I am, in the Order of Preachers, confident that God will give me the grace to live out my Dominican vocation.

Br. Robert Verrill is a first year student

To Praise, to Bless, to Preach!

This Sunday, the World Day of Prayer for Vocations, we would like to share with you a video exploring the gift of a Dominican vocation produced by our brothers in St Joseph's Province, U.S.A.



Their other videos, available here, are also well worth a look.

We ask you please to pray with and for our Order:

Blessed Jordan, worthy successor of St Dominic,
in the early days of the Order,
your example and zeal prompted many men and women
to follow Christ in the white habit of our Holy Father.
As patron of Dominican vocations,
continue to stimulate talented and devoted men and women to consecrate their lives to God. Through your intercession,
lead to the Order of Preachers generous and sacrificing persons, willing to give themselves fervently to the apostolate of truth.
Help them to prepare themselves to be worthy of the grace of a Dominican vocation.
Inspire their hearts to become learned of God,
that with firm determination they might aspire to be
champions of the faith and true lights of the world. Amen.

Dominican Vocation film clip (1964)

Our Dominican brothers in Washington, D.C. have recently put up this video on the Dominican vocation. It is taken from a 1964 film entitled And the world looks at us. Some aspects of the Dominican liturgy and some customs of conventual life have changed since then but our life is still essentially the same: dedicated to preaching for the salvation of souls, a preaching nourished and supported by prayer, contemplation, study and fraternity.



For a contemporary account of the call to Dominican life read Br Bruno's story.

Is God calling you too?

A Dominican Vocation

‘Can I have your neckties…?’ This was my reaction when my father told me that he was to train for the Permanent Diaconate. 1997: I was 19, finishing a degree in Music at Durham; looking forward to Postgraduate work at the Royal Northern College of Music and no thought of becoming a priest or religious. No thought of a vocation of my own.

No thought…? Aye, there’s the rub. There is the tremor of God’s plan that shakes you to the core. There is the manifestation of free cooperation with grace: God’s will, becoming my will. You see, at the time my father spoke to me there was already the unsettled sensation, the unfulfilled desire in the course of my life, something thrown into sharp focus against the oppressive freedom of undergraduate opinion.

This is what discernment is – the realisation of something that has always been there, but only grasped, manifested, revealed when it becomes your choice. In 1997 I was struggling in my lifelong faith, not with its truth but with its defence. I couldn’t explain why: why I believed; why it was true. Knowledge without understanding is just information. And this uncertainty of direction was not solved by career advancement. Despite my benefit from its education, the conservatoire didn’t have an answer to the nagging thought: what do I want to do?

A vocation is grounded in this simple question. Vocation is a choice, a desire that can only be known in retrospect by stepping into it – the grace of God in our will. But this all unfolds only following the decisive first step and everyone’s story is different.

The coincidence of my restlessness and my father’s vocation proved the catalyst. In 2000, while at the RNCM, I read but one page of a book, The Catholic Faith by Richard Conrad OP, a Dominican friar. Its clarity, its reasonableness, its understanding exposed a tradition of thinking about truth and fell into a groove for me. ‘Who are these Dominicans?’ I thought. ‘This is what needs to be done, this study, this cultivation of understanding, this preaching. More people should do this work’. And I turned back to music. But it was too late… The seed of desire had begun to grow and the sense of duty, responsibility and calling gradually unveiled. The Catholic Church needs Preachers and if you can’t get a job done…

So what is the next step? Meeting the brethren: and yet, despite this, I joined the Order(!) But really, the choice of approaching a Conventual Religious Order involves relationship, something I had to experience as part of my discernment. I went to meet the vocations director; attended community, vocation events; lived with the brothers. As one Dominican always advises aspirants – you need to want to do two things in the Order: preach the Gospel; love the brethren. Both need to be learnt.

This is why the route of formation in the Order is so important. The unveiling process – that is, the gradual realisation once the decision is made that it has always been part of you – this process continues in the early years of Dominican life: the novitiate, the years of Simple Profession. Timothy Radcliffe’s experience I have found to be true: you join for some reasons, you stay for others. Both are necessary.

There is another aspect to a vocation: they have to want you too! I was called to preach by the Church and the Order who responded to my aspiration. Inasmuch as God calls you, by making it your wish, He calls you within His Church, and the Church confirms your vocation. Both aspects fulfil the desire.

So, I completed my work as a composer at the RNCM and applied to join the English Province of the Order of Preachers. I began the novitiate in 2002. And the Dominicans encourage your gifts: I still write music and we sing the Office every day. I am Cantor for the Priory of Oxford. So from the time as a novice, to today, Solemnly Professed and progressing towards ordination this year, I have passed nearly five years as an obedient friar, doing what I want to do. I didn’t need those neckties after all.

This article, by Bruno Clifton OP, is published in this week's Catholic Herald

Worthy Successor of St Dominic

"The Rule of the Friars Preachers. And this is their Rule: to live virtuously, to learn, to teach."

These words of Jordan of Saxony reveal a friar whose experience of the Dominican life, as much as his studiousness, informs his conduct in regular observance. Born in Burgberg, Westphalia at the end of the twelfth century, he received the habit from Bl Reginald of Orleans (whose feast we celebrated yesterday) on 12 February 1220, becoming Provincial of Lombardy only one year later and then first successor to St Dominic as Master of the Order not long after. We can only imagine the weight of such a task as the new order lost its founder. And yet, there is only a hint of this apprehension in Jordan’s own writings:

"I had only been in the Order one year and had not struck root as deeply as I ought to have done. I was to be placed over others as their superior, before I had learned to govern my own imperfection."

(Libellus on the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers)

Jordan oversaw the refinement of the Constitutions and began many traditions that are still observed in the Order today: for instance, encyclical letters from the Master to the brethren and the singing of the Salve Regina after Compline. There are many stories and words from and about Blessed Jordan, who guided his brothers and sisters in the footsteps of Dominic for fifteen years and drew over a thousand novices in the Order. He is, for this reason, the patron of Dominican Vocations and after Compline on Wednesdays at Blackfriars we pray to him for "talented and devoted men and women to consecrate their lives to God".

It has been said that "Jordan who, more than any one man after St Dominic himself, created the spirit of the Order, gave to it a joy and an informality in its daily life which are amongst its greatest treasures, for they enshrine and express a whole theology of religious life." This spirit of joy and laughter is shown in just one story from his in the 'Lives of the Brethren', the Vitae Fratrum:

"When on his way home to his convent with a fresh batch of novices, as they were all saying Compline together, one of them fell to laughing, and the rest catching on joined in right heartily. Upon this one of the blessed Master’s companions made a sign for them to be quiet, which only set them off laughing more than ever. When the blessing had been given at the end of Compline, the Master turning to this friar rebuked him sharply: ‘Brother, who made you their master? What right have you to take them to task?' Then addressing the novices very gently, he said, ‘Laugh to your heart’s content, my dearest children, and don’t stop on that man’s account. You have my full leave, and it is only right that you should laugh after breaking from the devil’s thraldom, and bursting the shackles in which he held you fast these many years past. Laugh on, then, and be as merry as you please, my dearest sons.’ They were all very much relieved on hearing him say so…"

Jordan and two of his confreres were killed in a shipwreck on 13 February 1237 returning from the new priory in Acre in the Holy Land. This would have seemed a tragedy for the Order were we not assured of his continued love and intercession from heaven. We thank God for the gift of so worthy a successor to St Dominic. Br Lawrence at Oxford has written this prayer to Jordan:

May Blessed Jordan of Saxony pray for the Order of Preachers today and always, and grant an increase of vocations to the Dominican Family. May he stir up the hearts of young men and women, as once he did on this earth, with a fervour for Truth, to give themselves in its service in the Order of Preachers. May he clothe us, his brothers and sisters, with his zeal and passion for Christ the Word, and may he give us cause joyfully to laugh in his company for ever. Amen.

Blessed Jordan, pray for us.