Vocation Discernment
Are you being called to become a priest or brother?
Click here, and discover what it means to become a preacher of truth!
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
Fr. Barnabas William Curtin, OP
Thirty-five years a Dominican and twenty-seven years a priest, William Barnabas Curtin died at St. Dominic's in San Francisco on May 21, 1987."
Barny" was born to William and Kathleen Curtin on September 24, 1930, in San Francisco and was baptized one month later in St. Philip's Church, his family's parish. He attended St. Philip's Grade School, among others, and then several of The City's high schools, including Sacred Heart. He entered the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949, and after three years there, offered his life in service to the Lord by entering the Dominican Novitiate in Kentfield, California. He was ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1960.
He served in a variety of locales throughout the province, his longest terms of ministry being in Holy Rosary, Portland, and St. Dominic's, San Francisco. While in Portland, he taught theology at Marylhurst College and served as secretary of the Commission on Christian Unity. He also served on the Marriage Tribunal there and wrote several articles for America magazine, which anticipated the Church's later more liberal attitude toward annulments.
Barnabas had a quick and ready mind, and a passion for matters theological. Toward the end of his life, his chief concern was with Faith, how to define it in terms of contemporary significance. His concern was not simply speculative. Especially in his last year, as he realized the imminence of his death, he found his own faith severely tried. In his own words, all he could do was "wait in the dark and trust." Throughout his religious and priestly life, Barnabas suffered, sometimes acutely, from mental distress, but that same faith that carried him into death and beyond was with him all through his illness. In spite of darkness, he kept hoping for the light. And though he himself experienced little enough of it, his compassion, his preaching and counseling brought light to many in need of it. In the end, he thought of himself as a failed priest. Those who knew him best knew better.
It is true he was crucified out of weakness, but he lives by the power of God. We too are weak in him, but we live with him by God's power in us. (2 Cor 13:4)
--Father Fabian Parmisano, O.P.
|
Date of Birth |
Date of Profession |
Date of Ordination |
Date of Death |
|
September 24, 1930 |
September 28, 1953 |
June 10, 1960 |
May 21, 1987 |
XII: 388