My spiritual journey and vocation can be summed up as such: I never planned on any of this.
I write this blog post in the Fall of 2023, working full time in higher education, and recently made temporary, three year promises in the lay branch of the Order of Preachers. For those who are not too familiar, the Order of Preachers is an 800-year-old Catholic religious order (like the Franciscans), founded by St. Dominic de Guzman in 1216. Its focus--or more officially its charism--is the love for Truth and preaching of the Gospel, and is made up of priests, religious brothers, contemplative and active sisters, and lay people like myself.
My journey began when I entered college eight years ago. My school was a Catholic university, and I intended to study Communications and delve into theological studies. I enjoyed the realm of communications, particularly advertising, because of the idea of taking a product or service, and communicating its goodness in creative ways to the rest of the world. And having gone to public school for the majority of my life, I was thrilled to immerse myself in a faith environment with people who were on fire for Christ.
There, I met the Dominican friars for the first time, who served in Campus Ministry. I was vaguely aware of the Order beforehand, but this was my first, real exposure to religious-order priests, who were very distinctly dressed in their white habits and clunking around with their large rosaries hanging from their belts.
Immediately I felt like I could trust their understanding of the Truth, and ability to hand it on to others well (which is the charism after all, how surprising), something that I highly valued. Maybe it was because I'd never seen clergy wearing habits before, and I assumed that meant automatic holiness. But though I met many people--diocesan seminarians and clergy especially--who loved Christ and His Church, I perceived a particular fire for God these Dominicans possessed. It was there no matter the temperament of the friar...whether he was extroverted and boisterous, or soft-spoken and mellow.
I could sense that fire in the confessional, or in conversations in which I poured out my wounded heart to them. It was there even in light hearted contexts such as the campus ministry office and extracurriculars. They didn't have to be so pious so as to be completely unrelatable to us students, nor were they trying too hard to be likable. They were simply their unique and interesting selves; these men were grounded in their humanity, and their sacred office as religious, and simply lived it joyfully.
From the lively discussion around the coffee table about which religious group in the Church could be a Dominican "rival" (I learned it was the Franciscans, not diocesan priests), playing tag at a roller skating rink, to hurriedly coming to their offices and tearfully unloading all my problems and being responded with both love and firmness in truth, to working with a friar to build a formation program to minister to the homeless...
I didn't realize it at the time, but these relationships laid the groundwork for my vocation to the Dominican laity.