Br. Carlos Reflects on the Novitiate

Just over five months ago I began my year as a novice in the Order of Preachers. This is a year especially focused on prayer in our Dominican way of life. As novices, we also begin to learn to live a life in community, a life of study, and even a life of preaching! Thus far, I have experienced no less than what I expected or thought that the novitiate would be like. There have been challenges, but there have also been many joyful moments that overshadow any difficulties that we’ve encountered along the way as novices.

Prayer

I would like to begin with the prayer life in the novitiate. Many of the practices that we have in our common prayer are practices that I had already adopted before entering. But the novitiate has pushed them further and helped me grow in my life of prayer.

For example, the Liturgy of the Hours, the prayer of the Church, has taken a different meaning. Where I used to pray Morning Prayer (Lauds) first thing in the morning by myself in my college apartment, I now have a chapel to go to where the Blessed Sacrament is reposed. Before beginning prayer, we have thirty minutes of meditation where I pray the Office of Readings and then have quiet prayer.

After these thirty minutes, we begin praying Lauds; we share a life of prayer as a whole community. It’s not just me praying this hour of the day, but it’s everyone with whom I live praying together, along with some guests. It serves as a reminder that the whole Church is praying with me, with us, in the chapel, with the saints.

Community

The life in community is often described as the best – and the most and the least joyful – part of our life. This is because it is in this way of life that we get to share all aspects of our daily lives which can vary from an undesired argument to a conversation without a sense of the passage of time.

That’s how life in community has been in the novitiate also: There have been arguments that I believe were unnecessary, but there are also many moments in which it seems that we could just talk forever, or we are enjoying a good movie so much that it seems like time didn’t pass at all. Whatever it might be, the great moments of community life overshadow the few poor ones.

For the Feast of All Saints, we went to a local cemetery where a few Dominican Friars are buried. It was a visitation of our community to them. The cold, 30-degree weather with an even colder wind chill was telling us to get back in our cars and go home, but it was our purpose that gave us warmth and the strength to stay there for a few minutes. I wasn’t granted with the gift of singing, and it was more difficult in the cold breeze. At the end, it was once more our community coming together to pray for those who have gone before us, especially those brothers buried there. The prayer was a prayer of the community.

Study

The last two aspects of our life have been the most unexpected in terms of my anticipation. Beginning with our life of study, I was fully aware that as novices we don’t take credited courses at an institution; it’s rather the friars from the community or guests who come to give us a class (or a series of classes) on different topics relevant to us as novices.

I have enjoyed learning about our Holy Father Dominic, about the history of our Order, our constitutions and form of government, the vows, spirituality, etc. With some of these classes, we need to prepare by reading an article or a chapter from a book beforehand. However, our study does not stop at the classes. If that were the case, we would only be studying three days a week.

We study daily. It’s part of our vocation as Dominican Friars. In the novitiate, we have books that our novice master has asked us to read. In addition to that, we have a plan to read the Bible throughout the novitiate year. Lastly, the library in the Priory where we live is filled with books of all kinds, ranging from the saints and spirituality to theological works, and especially the Summa Theologiae by Thomas Aquinas.

After having read the majority of the books on our reading list, I have now begun to read books of my own personal interest from our priory library and the Public Library. Even the friars who have completed their initial formation continue to study through reading and the discussion of a topic with the community. Although next year, God-willing, I’ll be studying full time, I am already getting a hint of what it is like to study outside of academic classwork. I am enjoying it because it is usually something that the community as a whole is interested in or that I am personally interested in. Then, we use this knowledge from our study as nourishment for the preaching.

Preaching

As a novice, I am not seen at the pulpit preaching often. In fact, I have only done it once during our Vespers (Evening Prayer) in Advent. It was an opportunity for the novices to prepare a reflection on one of the Sunday readings. After all, we are the Order of Preachers, so it is only fitting that we begin preparing this early.

However, if we were to define preaching as only a homily given from the pulpit, then we are restricting it by a lot. I love when the deacon or priest says after the final blessing: “Go and announce the Gospel of the Lord.” That’s always a good reminder for us: We need to be examples of the Good News that Jesus brought to us. Sometimes it happens when we are wearing our habit out in public and someone approaches us with a question about the faith or to ask for prayers. It is amazing once we start thinking about how many lives we have encountered and the trust they put in us, we are only novices!

Each of us, as novices, have a specific ministry once a week. I work at Dominican Home Health Agency, originally founded by the Dominican Sisters of the Sick Poor. Now that there aren’t any sisters around to do the work, their ministry still carries on thanks to the laity. The purpose of this ministry is to provide essential health care assistance to people who are sick and who have limited financial resources so they may stay at home as long as possible without having to move into a nursing home prematurely. Nurses and CNAs visit these people at their homes to assist them with their medicines, a bath, checking their health, etc.

My ministry is to visit these patients and assist them in their spiritual health. The agency does not distinguish people according to their faith; not all of the people I visit are Catholic. The ones who are, I take Communion to them, read the daily Gospel or Epistle reading, and a short reflection follows it. I have found them to be attentive to what the Gospel is telling them, and I engage with them so they may also share what they think about it. Those who are not Catholic also need to hear the Word of God, it is helpful to bring to their attention the stories where Jesus tells the people He encountered that their faith has saved them and about the many miracles and healings he performed. At times, however, the people I visit only need to talk and lay out everything that’s on their minds.

All of those are examples of preaching being done by us as novices. Some novices minister at a school. Their preaching looks different: giving a class, answering questions about our faith, etc. Ministry in the novitiate as a glimpse at what my ministry in the future could be like. Ministry is present during our initial formation to allow us to discern better. I believe it certainly is helpful because I need to see that my studies are actually going to be benefitting someone. Maybe it’s a bit selfish to think that I need to see it myself or else I wouldn’t be convinced, it’s also maybe a bit of lack of faith in Christ’s will for me, but that is something to be brought to prayer. After all, this is what the novitiate is for: prayer and discernment.

I do believe that He is calling me to be here, to continue to be a Dominican Friar and a preacher of His Gospel. This has come as a result of prayer, both mine and of others for me, along with the life in community experienced in the novitiate, our studies, and the preaching that is done both through our lives and ministry. I continue to pray and ask for your prayers towards my discernment, that this is truly where God wants me to be. I also ask you to pray that more young men and women be open to the call to religious life.