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. Bradley Thomas Elliott, OP
Br. Bradley Thomas Elliott is from Centerville Ohio. He was born to a loving and devout Lutheran family with the Catholic priesthood being the last thing he ever expected for his own life. Through his Lutheran training he developed a love for Sacred Scripture and a deep longing to grow closer to our the Lord Jesus Christ wherever that might lead.
During his youth he developed a love for music and the performing arts. He began to play the drums in his early teens and decided to devote his life to the study of percussion and drum-set performance. He studied Jazz and Studio Music at the University of Cincinnati College Conservatory of Music where he earned a Bachelors degree in music. During his college years, the seed that a Lutheran upbringing had planted began to sprout and his love for scripture and the disciplined study of Christian doctrine took him in new directions. Through prayer and study Br. Brad soon realized that following our Lord Jesus wherever He led, a commitment made as a teen, demanded that he enter full communion with the Catholic Church. At the Easter Vigil of 2002 he entered the Catholic Church at St. Gertrude's Church, a Dominican parish, in Cincinnati Ohio.
After college, to continue his pursuit of a career in music, he soon found himself in Los Angeles California performing professionally on an international level. He performed all forms of contemporary music from jazz to rock n' roll, both recording and touring the country with many top artists. However, after achieving much of the success that he had so dreamed of, he still felt a deep yearning for something much more, a desire to follow Jesus on an even deeper level, a radical level, that his career and life up to that point could not satisfy. After much prayer and discernment, a call became clear and the active decision to enter religious life was made.
Due to his passion for learning, disciplined study and a desire for community living, the Dominican order promises to be the ideal life. The journey Br. Brad began as a teen, the journey of following Jesus, has wonderfully and providentially led to the Dominican Order.