Vocation Discernment
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Vocation Office
Western Dominican Province
5890 Birch Court
Oakland, CA 94618-1626
(510)-596-1821
Our Vocations require a great deal of support, from the first moment they begin their novitiate until the last moments of their retirement. Please do conside visiting our donation page and helping form and sustain the priests and brothers who will serve you in the future, serve you now and have served you in the past.
Saints and Blesseds
The Order of Friars Preachers,
The Dominican Order,
has a beautiful history of learning, service and holiness manifested in its saints and blesseds of every age since its foundation by St. Dominic de Guzman. Do enjoy the periodic postings of such stories as are available from various sources, especially our own archives.
Religious Retirement
Our elderly and infirm friars receive the best care we have available to us, as in any family. We rely heavily on the donations of others for our own existence and thus when one of our own becomes incapable of further ministry due to age or infirmity, those same donations help us support the sometimes necessary special care required by such members of our communities.
We prefer to care for our elderly and infirm in our own houses so that the life of a religious community can be a part of a friars life as long as possible. This is also the most economical in many ways. We strive to use donations wisely. But sometimes a care facility is essential. As we, as a Province, do not benefit from the national collection for retired religious, we ask that you assist us in caring for these friars who have prayed, taught, served and ministered for so many years amomg the people of the Western United States and beyond.
Please, in your kindness, consider assisting us in this work of brotherly love.
Many thanks in advance.
Catholicism
It's just the right thing
Br. Dominic John Donnelly, OP
John Francis Donnelly was born of William Patrick Donnelly and Ellen McKenna on March 15, 1878 in Eastport, Coos County, Oregon, where he lived for nine years. He was baptized on March 24, 1878 in Marshfield, now Coos Bay, Oregon, by Father J. Heinrich, M.P. While there he received thirty-two months of schooling. He did not go to high school or college. He lived in Bandon for eight more years. He lived in Gallup, New Mexico for six months in 1896 when he was seventeen years old. He returned to Eastport, Oregon for three more years. After that he lived in Spokane, Washington for eighteen years, then Seattle for two more years. At Ryde, California in the Diocese of Sacramento he lived from 1920 to 1922. He was a blacksmith by trade.
He came to St. Thomas Priory, Ross, California on June 12, 1922 and received the tertiary donatus habit the following February taking the name Br. Dominic. He received the habit of a lay-brother five years later. On September 16, 1934 in St. Dominic's Church, Benicia, California he made his solemn profession in the hands of Father Christopher Vincent Lamb, the Prior.
Brother Dominic was assigned to Oakland, California in 1932 in order to help prepare the newly purchased property and buildings for use as St. Albert's Priory and remained in Oakland until 1951. The children of the neighborhood were fond of him and came to visit him as he worked. The bridge in the garden of St. Albert's Priory is a monument to his love of working with concrete. His massive wooden carts helped him haul debris from the garden. The workmen on the new wing of St. Albert's in 1949-1950 remember him for keeping them supplied with fresh water so they would not have to drink from the hydrants which drew from the creek.
On February 26, 1951 he was assigned to the College of the Immaculate Conception, Ross, California. There he excavated much of the area under the chapel and built the incinerator and some small bridges in concrete. None of these are now standing. During his last illness he was assigned to St. Dominic's Priory in San Francisco in 1957. He died in 1960 at the age of 81. May God bless him.
Photo: Br. Dominic and his bridge at St. Albert's Priory, Oakland
Photo: Br. Dominic and his bridge at St. Albert's Priory, Oakland
Photo: Br. Dominic officially opening the bridge
Photo: Br. Dominic with the wagon he built
|
Date of Birth |
Date of Profession |
Date of Ordination |
Date of Death |
|
March 15, 1878 |
September 9, 1928 |
NA |
January 12, 1960 |
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