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. Patrick John Callaghan, OP
In recording the death of our Reverend John Patrick Callaghan, O.P., we sincerely deplore the passing of a good man and a zealous missionary priest. The deceased, who died in Stockton on June nineteenth, of a hemorrhage of the brain, was a native of Longford, Ireland. At the time of his death Father Callaghan was in his seventy-fifth year; more than thirty-five of these had been devoted to the service of God in arduous missionary work. Having completed his theological studies in Rome, Father Patrick came to California in the early sixties.
Ordained priest at Benicia in 1865, he immediately engaged in active works of charity among the people of the widely-scattered stations in Contra Costa and Solano counties. The difficulties attendant upon the discharge of his priestly duties in these sparsely settled districts developed in Father Patrick a singular benignity, which was ever manifested in his paternal tenderness towards the various members of his flock.
He never complained of physical discomfort but continued his self-sacrificing labors up to the period of his brief illness that preceded his death. Revered for his honest priestly character, admired for his unswerving fidelity to sacred convictions, tenderly loved for his genial sympathy and indulgent tolerance, Father Callaghan will long be remembered in the grateful prayers of those for whose spiritual interests he labored so devotedly during his lifetime. Wonderfully edifying was his Christian life, singularly consoling is his death.
Why should the Christian fear to die?
Why shun the grave with gasping breath?
For God, our Saviour, conquered Death
When forth He breathed that mighty cry!
Sweet Death! Thou art an angel bright
Illumining ev'ry phase of Life;
And hushing ev'ry sound of strife;
Then guide my footsteps thro' the night!
Thou opest wide the Golden Gate,
A starry crown is on thy brow;
And thou art beckoning even now;
I know I have not long to wait!
O welcome me with smiles and love,
And lead me to my Saviour's Feet
Where I, once more, near him may greet
my father and my own above!
--1904, Dominicana V.5, pg. 240-241
|
Date of Birth |
Date of Profession |
Date of Ordination |
Date of Death |
|
June 29, 1832 |
January 8, 1860 |
1864 |
June 19, 1904 |
XII: 18