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. Donald J. Philip Neri Bramble, OP
I was born in Quebec, Canada (1950) and raised in south-central Los Angeles, attending Daniel Murphy H.S. (at one time a Dominican high school), where I got to know the friars. After two years at Cal State College, Los Angeles, I entered the Dominicans in 1970. I was ordained June 4, 1976, thirty-five years and one day after my uncle's ordination (Msgr. Keith Bramble). My family is an extended Irish Catholic clan, long involved in civil rights, with roots in California from the 1890's. My educational background includes Masters in Divinity (D.S.P.T., 1977) and theology (1978), as well as a master of psychiatric social work (University of Utah, 1989).I have served in Alaska, Utah, California and Arizona in parishes, Hispanic ministry, campus ministry, college teaching, retreats, adult education, itinerant preaching, director of the Dominican Mission Foundation for six years, and recently as pastor of Holy Family Cathedral, Anchorage, and Vicar General of the Archdiocese of Anchorage. After a sabbatical at our Dominican house in Las Vegas, I am beginning a new assignment as Associate Director of Campus Ministry at the University of Arizona, Tucson.
I consider the Dominican community life an outstanding opportunity to do wonderfully interesting and diverse ministry in an incredibly diverse field, the Western United States, with terrific friars in community. My training as a Dominican has allowed me to take an intelligent approach to my work, and gives me ample opportunities as a preacher. The international character of the Order, the men and women, lay and religious in the Dominican Family, the multitude of provinces, weave a rich spiritual heritage reaching back to St. Dominic, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Martin de Porres, and a host of other greats, who are all our companions on the road to heaven! What wondrous fellowship we have! [updated: June 2008]
Photos 2004 | 2007 | 2010
Dominican Mission Foundation Newsletters
1999 January | 1999 February | 1999 March