Freedom For God

By Praedicare Staff

Each Dominican friar has a different story of how he first met the Order of Preachers, a different personal history, and (usually) a different family of origin. From out of these many paths for different men across the generations, one Order emerges dedicated to preaching the Gospel for the salvation of souls.

The Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph have ordained over 65 men to the priesthood over the last decade. They have all joined generations of friars who have gone before them. The Dominican Order has an 800-year history that spans the globe due in part to how men are transformed into preachers through the formation process.

Formation is the preparation a friar goes through before he is ordained to the Priesthood and assigned to a long-term ministry. It aims at developing him emotionally, spiritually, intellectually, and pastorally so he can carry out his duties effectively.

In one sense, formation appears simple. It begins when a young man enters the multi-week postulancy, followed by the year-long novitiate at St. Gertrude Priory in Cincinnati, OH. The novices of the Province traditionally receive the Dominican habit on August 8, the Solemnity of Our Holy Father St. Dominic. They are gradually introduced to the life of the Order, its history, its customs, and its chant (there are lots of chant lessons in the novitiate!).

After just over a year in the novitiate, our novices make their first profession of vows on August 15 (the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary), formally becoming Dominican Friars. Then they are off to Washington, DC, where they enter what’s called the studentate, and pursue graduate-level studies in philosophy and theology at the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception (PFIC) at the Dominican House of Studies.

Both the Church and secular accrediting institutions have recognized the PFIC, allowing it to grant both ecclesiastical and civil degrees. Before priestly ordination, Dominican student brothers earn both a Baccalaureate of Sacred Theology (S.T.B.), an ecclesiastical degree, and a Master of Divinity (M.Div.), a civil degree. At the end of five to seven years—the length depends on the friar’s previous coursework—they are ordained priests and sent out into the world for a lifetime of ministry.

Underneath this straightforward progression from postulant to priest, a lot more goes on under the surface.

One friar, Fr. Philip Nolan, O.P., the editor-in-chief of Magnificat, who was ordained to the Priesthood in 2022, called the novitiate a “spiritual bootcamp.” Another friar, Fr. Bonaventure Chapman, O.P., who was ordained to the Priesthood in 2017, described parts of the formation process as “stones just sharpening each other through blunt force contact.”

Fr. Joseph Scordo,O.P, has been a Dominican priest for almost 60 years. For him, life in the novitiate was “very strict, very ordered.” “It was a challenge,” he said, “but it was good. It was good.”

Joyful Generosity

Formation is good because God is good. According to Fr. Philip, the formation process allows friars to “give their life to the Lord in joyful generosity.”

“Jesus called the disciples to be close to Him and then He sent them out,” he said. “Formation is learning to be close to Him so that you can freely go out and serve Him.”

According to Fr. Brian Chrzastek, O.P., an assistant professor of philosophy at the Dominican House of Studies, formation is not like simply teaching a skill or a technique; nor is it teaching a man how to act or put on a costume. It’s a more radical shaping of the man.

“One of the motivating phrases for the Thomistic Dominican tradition is ‘Grace perfects nature,’” Fr. Brian said. “So formation is the activity of the individual being formed—or allowing himself to be formed—in order to become the very thing that he’s supposed to be.”

With the Dominican Order’s emphasis on the fraternal life of the friars, the formation process also teaches the young men who enter about how to live in community as Dominicans. When men enter the Order, they are placed under the care of the novice master, who guides them through their first year.

Each novice has his own personal history, a different upbringing, a different experience and understanding of the faith, different talents–not to mention different faults and blind spots.

“Part of formation is healing our blind spots, or at least beginning to,” Fr. Philip said.

Among the novice master’s many responsibilities is to point out how a novice’s behaviors are impacting the community.

Fr. Philip said such corrections sting but he was “extremely grateful” for them. In offering correction, the novice master helps “us become more virtuous and more able to stand on our own two feet in the religious life, not merely following rules…but seeing the point and living by them,” he said.

If being corrected by the novice master is not enough, the novices also help to form one another–through living life in common and through a practice known as “fraternal correction.” Learning the art of fraternal correction allows the friars to address problematic behaviors that happen in community once they are out of the novitiate and studentate. St. Dominic, in particular, was known for his gracious manner in correcting his brethren.

“St. Dominic was really good in the sense that he was known for correcting his brothers such that they only realized that they had been corrected later by him,” said Fr. Bonaventure, who serves as an assistant student master at the Dominican House of Studies. “This is a goal that’s close to Jesus’ perfection as far as I can tell.”

Novices fall far short of St. Dominic’s skill in offering correction, but they practice. “You rather muck it up a bit,” Fr. Bonaventure said. “It’s a lot of trial and error.”

As time goes on, a friar comes to trust his brothers, receive their correction, and modify his behavior. He eventually comes to a point where he will start to think proactively about how his behavior affects his brethren.

“It helps you to be attentive to occasionally check in and say, am I doing anything to my brothers, that’s damaging the relationship of the community and therefore turning them away from God and towards me in anger and dislike,” Fr. Bonaventure said.

God’s Daily Grace

Just as the formation process helps a man live with the other friars, it also helps him live with another person: himself.

“We all come into formation with all sorts of fears and hangups and wounds and memories and uncertainties,” said Fr. Philip.

“A big experience of novitiate is learning that you are a project beyond your own capacity to fix,” he said. Every novice is like, “‘Wow, I am broken and I can’t fix myself.’”

The discovery of one’s own poverty leads a novice to even greater discoveries.

“A big one for me was learning that God is abundant, that I didn’t have to worry about running out of strength to live the religious life, but that He Himself would provide the strength and the grace to live each day,” said Fr. Philip.

“God, little by little, and [in] surprising ways, begins to heal,” he said.

Sent to Serve

Following ordination, friars are sent out to engage in various kinds of ministries: as pastors, parochial vicars, campus ministers, college professors, hospital chaplains, among many other ministries.

A friar sooner or later recognizes that his classes at the House of Studies have not prepared him for every situation he will encounter in ministry.

“There are all kinds of difficult situations that you can’t really prepare for,” said Fr. Brian, who was ordained to the Priesthood in 1992.

Nonetheless, the formation process is still a critical tool in preparing to handle such situations effectively. “It’s kind of a remote preparation in the sense of learning…[to] adjust or respond to any particular situation,” Fr. Brian said.

Fr. Scordo is a unique example of how formation prepares a friar to take on unanticipated ministries. Almost 20 years after his ordination as a Dominican priest, he went through another formation process: to become a chaplain for the U.S. Navy.

He heard members of the armed forces might go six months without access to the sacraments. So he volunteered to serve as a chaplain in the Navy. This led him from parish ministry in the United States to ministry around the world, including in Afghanistan during the Global War on Terrorism.

Another friar who gave him advice before joining the Navy said, “If you’re trying to escape authority, don’t join. If you’re trying to escape frustration, don’t join. If you want to go to work, join.”

So he did.

He said his formation as a friar had many similarities to his training as a Navy chaplain. They both taught him patience. They taught him to be positive, to adapt, to persist. They taught him to depend on God.

Over 60 years have passed since Fr. Scordo received the Dominican habit. He doesn’t plan to stop his ministry even as the years pass. “I don’t regret any of it,” he said.

Fr. Bonaventure expressed a sentiment explaining why someone could pour out his life as a Dominican friar and not “regret any of it.”

“Do you want to live a life fully devoted to Christ and with brothers who love you?” he said.

“That sounds pretty good. Maybe a lot of people are called to that.”