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. Augustine Hilander, OP
Finishing two graduate degrees in Divinity and Theology, and completing a year of diaconal ministry. Recently I was ordained a priest May 31, 2008. I have spent most of my life in school, but also I hold dear all the education I received outside of school.
I was born in 1977 and grew up in a secular home. My parents divorced when I was ten, and I grew up with my mother the rest of my life. I went to a Catholic high school because it was the best high school in the area. I then went to a Catholic college, because it had the type of curriculum I was interested in -- a Great Books college with the Socratic method of teaching. In college, I discovered the faith which animated people to welcome me and teach me what they knew. I wanted to be a person like that so I went to instruction with a Jesuit chaplain. I converted to the Catholic faith in Easter of 1997. This was the most important day of my life, reception into the Church. During first communion I asked God what he planned for my life and I have never stopped asking. During the next few years of college, I started preparing for what God had planned for my life. I never ruled out marriage or the single life as I discerned a vocation. With a Dominican chaplain, Fr. Bart de la Torre, I visited St. Albert’s, and I found the joy and love of a life lived for God and for the world overwhelming.
Now as I look back on my life, I see that it was not only my education that formed my decision. God worked through my parents who encouraged me to take on anything I wanted. He worked through my friends who were such great examples of a Christian life lived for God and in the world. He worked through all the experiences of life that made me a little more compassionate, a little more humble, a little more loving.
I look forward to a life where I will speak “to God or of God,” as was said of St. Dominic. Formation in a way of life has its ups and downs, but I hope that I can weather everything so as to make me a better preacher, a preacher open to God and offering the world hope, only the hope that comes from Christ. [updated 5-31-08]
Ordination to the Priesthood, May 31, 2008
A slide show and link to the history of our parish in San Francisco, California. September 2006
March for Life Photo, Washington, DC, January 2004
Necrology Project: Fr.. Augustine has been instrumental in this very important work. He continues his research.
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St. Dominic's Church in San Francisco, CA before the earthquake of 1906.02.jpg
By 1880, it was apparent that the church was too small for its rapidly growing congregation.03.jpg
Plans were drawn for a much larger church to be built of brick on the same site.04.jpg
The first church was moved to a location on Pine Street where it served as a parish hall.05.jpg
Although the cornerstone of the second church was laid in 1883, years of financial hardship followed and the church did not open until 1887 and was not completed for several years after. It served the parish until April 18, 1906.06.jpg
During the months following the great earthquake, parishioners gathered for Mass outdoors until, in October 1906, a wooden church opened on the Pierce Street side of the block.07.jpg
This "temporary" Saint Dominic's was to remain in use as a church until 1928 and as a parish hall until the 1960's when it was finally torn down.08.jpg
Work did not begin on the fourth Saint Dominic's until 1923.09.jpg
Archbishop Hanna blessed the new church after construction was finished in 1928.10.jpg
Even then, work continued for many years as the building we know now was brought to completion at the time of Saint Dominic's centennial celebration in 1973.11.jpg
For more of the history http://www.stdominics.org/art/history.asp12.jpg
For more of the history http://www.stdominics.org/art/history.aspThe Present Church
The fourth church on this site has been reworked after the earthquake of 1989. Flying buttresses and additional interior strengthening elements were added.