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
Fr. Henry James Aerden, OP
One of the Dominican Province's most interesting early foreign additions during the 1850s was Fr. Henry Aerden, O.P., of the Province of St. Rose in Belgium. He was born in that country on May 15, 1823, made his religious profession in September, 1841, and was ordained a priest at Ghent on December 20, 1846 after an indult from the pope for being so young.
Soon after ordination he accepted the offer of Bishop Modeste DeMers of Vancouver Island to join his diocese. After several years of ministry mainly among the Indians, Aerden had unspecified difficulties with the bishop which were serious enough to get him suspended. He came to California on February 28, 1851, and for several years worked, as a layman, in the mines at Marysville and Grass Valley.
One Sunday, after the Mass he was attending, he introduced himself to the celebrant, Fr. Thomas J. Dalton, and corrected a point of doctrine in his sermon. Evidently Dalton was impressed with Aerden (if not with the correction!) for he wrote to Archbishop Alemany and told him of the suspended priest. Alemany invited Aerden to return to the exercise of his priesthood and, the invitation accepted, the suspension was lifted. Fr. Vilarrasa welcomed him back into the Order in Benicia on November 4, 1856. From then on his name appears frequently in the documentation and records of the congregation, indicating an active and fruitful ministry, both internal to the Order and external in the archdiocese at large.
He was such a good missionary because he spoke French, Spanish and German, as well as English. After a time in Benicia, he was put in charge of St. Brigid's parish in San Francisco, then far on the outskirts of the city and built the first church there. From 1864 to 1874, he was the pastor of St. Francis church, which is now the Shrine. He then moved to Martinez, where he built the church. He died of a stroke in 1896 as the much loved first resident pastor of St. Catherine's in Martinez after long service there.
Source: Parmisano, Stan Fabian, OP, Mission West: The Western Dominican Province 1850-1966. Oakland: Western Dominican Province, 1997.
|
Date of Birth |
Date of Profession |
Date of Ordination |
Date of Death |
|
May 15, 1823 |
September 1841 |
December 20, 1846 |
March 2, 1896 |
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