The Dominicans Province of the Most Holy Name of Jesus

Vocation Discernment


Are you being called to become a priest or brother?

Click here, and discover what it means to become a preacher of truth!

 

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. Michael Thomas Morris, op

Professor of Religion & the Arts

Office Location: East 209
Phone: 510-883-2075
E-mail: mmorris@dspt.edu
Office Hours: by appointment

Education:

BFA, University of Southern California; BA., MDiv., St. Albert's College; MA, PhD, University of California, Berkeley.

Biography:

Art is the beauty of truth, the shadow of divine perfection; it is that material thing that brings us to the immaterial. It inspires us, it leads us, it teaches us and even scares us. Theology is not just a science to be rationalized; there is beauty to be seen. What I do here completes people, by showing that art, like creation, is multidimensional - there is no limit to beauty.

Fr. Michael trains his students to develop an understanding of religious art as the key to a deeper understanding of theology. For him, it is an important and pleasurable quest to experience in religious studies the beauty that radiates from truth. Fr. Michael's teaching method is the classic lecture style with visual aids accompanied by discussion. He offers his students a multidimensional approach to understanding religious themes in all expressions of art. Fr. Michael is also the director of the Santa Fe Institute, a private research center with a library of 12,000 volumes devoted to Religion and the Arts. For over ten years he has been a regular art essayist for the monthly devotional booklet "Magnificat."

Courses Taught:

Research Interests:

Fr. Michael Morris is currently working on a number of writing and research projects. At the forefront is Summa Cinematica, discovering the religious themes found in film in a systematic and categorical way inspired by Thomas Aquinas. He is also in the process of publishing his dissertation Cowled Creatures: the Image of the Monk in Georgian and Victorian England, and is doing research on artists who've created signature chapels. His academic interests are: Art History; Film; Pop Culture; Myth and Legend.

Select Publications:

  • Reel Religion: 100 Years of the Bible in Film. New York: Museum of Biblical Art, 2009.
  • "A Painter’s Magnificat: Friedrich Overbeck’s Triumph of Religion in the Arts." In On Pilgrimage with Magnificat. New York: Magnificat USA, 2008.
  • For Magnificat USA, many articles including:
    • Blake’s "Our Lady with the Infant Jesus Riding on a Lamb with St. John" (Christmas, 2008)
    • "Martyrdom of St. Denis" (10/2008)
    • "Mary’s Assumption into Heaven” (8/2008)
    • "St. Paul Preaching and Escaping from Damascus in a Basket" (6/2008)
    • "Rublev’s Icon of the Trinity" (5/2008)
    • "Noli Me Tangere" (Holy Week 2008)
  • "Previewing Mel Gibson's Passion." New Oxford Review (February 2004).
  • Madam Valentino: The Many Lives of Natacha Rambova. Abbeville Press, 1991. [Listed by the New York Times as one of the notable books of the year.].