An Announcement

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On April 24th, at St. Dominic Catholic Church in Eagle Rock, California, I will be received into the Dominican Order as a lay member.

At this point, most of you are probably scratching your heads, and saying, “Huh?” I can see that I’ve got some explaining to do—too much for one blog post. I’ll have to work on it over time.

To begin with, though, the Dominican Order, also known as the Order of Preachers, was founded in 1205 by the man we now call St. Dominic, a contemporary of St. Francis of Assissi. There are three branches of the Order of Preachers: the friars, the sisters, and the lay; it’s into this last branch that I will be received. In other words, I’m not becoming a monk, or a priest; Jane would have something to say about that, and rightly so. In fact, I’ll mostly be doing the same things I’m doing now: raising my kids, providing for my family through my work at JPL, and so forth.

But, I will be trying to live a Christian life in the Catholic faith in the manner of St. Dominic. I’ll have more to say about that later.

As I’ve said, I will be “received” into the order. This is a technical term—it means that I’m being accepted into a chapter of the Dominican laity to participate in the life of the chapter and to attempt to follow the rule of St. Dominic, but that I am not yet being asked to make any promises. This is a trial period, as it were.

Why would I do such a thing? I’ll have more to say about that as well; but for now I’ll simply quote the Blessed Mother:

…my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant.

More later. If you have questions, please feel free to leave a comment.

5 thoughts on “An Announcement”

  1. God bless you. Not the way I’d go, but obviously you are submitting yourself to the church in order to follow Christ more closely. Can’t argue with that.

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  2. Lars, that’s precisely correct—but I’d be doing that whether I became a Dominican or not. The peak of the mountain is Christ, but there are many paths up the mountain. I’m not only committing myself to get to the top (which is nothing new, really), but I”m committing myself to a particular path, one to which it seems I’m well-suited.

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  4. Congratulations. I’m a convert of just over a year from Portland. I’ve enjoyed following your blog, because I’m interested in St. Thomas, attend mass at the Dominican priory here, and I’m a software engineer as well.

    I look forward to hearing more about your experience as a lay member of the Dominican order.

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  5. Todd, pleased to meet you!

    In my view, St. Thomas ought to be the patron saint of Software Engineers. The closest thing we’ve got is St. Isidore of Seville, the patron saint of the Internet; he was selected on the basis of having written the first encyclopedia. That’s fine for the Internet, but it isn’t software engineering. If I knew who to contact at the Vatican about such things I’d have a letter sent in short order.

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