Many of you may be wondering what this whole Dominican thing is, why I do it, or whatnot. Well, my journey to begin Dominican Volunteers USA comes from an invitation - in April 2007.
It was my Freshman year at St. Thomas Aquinas College (a Dominican school). Our campus minister, Sr. Madeleine, O.P. (order of preachers aka Dominican) asked me to go to the Dominican Preaching in Action College Conference. Now, after my confirmation, I had grown apart from the church. I did not want to go to some conference where we were going to talk about God and whatnot. I was not ready to respond to this invitation. So I told her no.
She went on to tell me that it was taking place in Miami Shores, Florida at Barry University.
Ok tropical location.
The college would foot the bill.
Ok free visit to a tropical location…
I’m in.
So, even if it wasn’t for the best of reasons, I went to the conference. BUT - That conference invigorated my faith and spirituality. Being able to see other college aged teens talking about faith (and they weren't the people I always thought were weird because of their uber religiousness) really gave me a sense of community that I hadn't quite found in my home parish. I was hooked! I loved hearing about the Four Pillars of Community, Study, Prayer, and Preaching (and not just preaching from the pulpit). I was able to be open to the invitation to follow these crazy Dominicans along the path of Veritas ("truth" in Latin). I wanted to be that light piercing the darkness. Above all, there was no judgment. Not one sister, brother, priest, associate, or fellow conference-goer judged me for my lack of going to mass weekly, knowledge of the bible, how I live my life, or what choices I made. They welcomed me in with open arms and embraced the gifts that I was able to bring to the church.
At the end of the conference, I found out I wasn’t alone, my fellow conference attendees and I didn’t want to stop at that. We felt strongly that we were called to something bigger. That next summer (2008), we formed the Dominican Young Adults - a national organization where 18-30(ish) year olds, like us, who often between college and marriage can feel left out in the church, could continue to be a community where we could pray and study with each other while preaching the good news through our actions and the actions of our chapters.
But we didn’t want to stop at that. We felt strongly that we were called to bigger things. We accepted that invitation to follow and some of the members of the board went to Portugal (2009) to the gathering of the International Dominican Youth Movement to have the USA Dominican Young Adults organization obtain international recognition within this movement.
Next, I joined with the other chapters of DYA USA at our national gathering in Chicago (2010). We had a blast, while putting in a lot of work restructuring and electing new board members. I was lucky enough (and super humbled) to be voted in my my fellow DYA members as the Communications Chair of the Dominican Young Adults, USA.
Shortly after, I was asked to come to the High School Preaching Conference (2010) in order to preach to the students at their closing liturgy - an experience I will never forget!
Sometime in this whole journey, I was also asked to preach at the Dominican Motherhouse in Blauvelt. To this day, every time I visit the Motherhouse, a different sister tells me how they remembered my preaching that day!
Thinking I could not possibly get more involved (silly me), I was then asked to be part of the Young Dominican Mission Teams. So myself, and five of my fellow DYA members trained out on Long Island (2010) to go out and talk about our experiences with the Dominican charism and our faith. We then traveled to various locations (Dominican College - Blauvelt, NY, Molloy College - Rockville Centre, NY, Dominican University - River Forest, IL, among others) with more to come!
All this has finally brought me to DV USA. I actually applied last summer, but I had so many other obligations (new job, Vacation Bible School, two shows, etc.) that made it quite impossible to commit. After a year, I have been blessed with a great tenure at Education First, where I have learned a lot and really found a home. I am financially, emotionally, and spiritually stable. I was strongly called to commit myself to a year of service with Dominican Volunteers.
This calling was only strengthened after my phone interview with the principal of St. Pius V - a Pre-K-8th Grade Catholic grammar school in Chicago, IL. I will be substitute teaching, working with technology, helping out in the resource room, floating around where needed, and doing some after school extracurricular activities. The more we both talked about what we were looking for, the more we realized how perfect of a fit this placement was for me.
I will be living in the Carlos Morales House in the South Side of Chicago, right about the DV USA headquarters and right across the street from St. Pius V. It is in the Pilsen community just south of the Dwight D. Eisenhower Expressway (Rte. 290). I will be living in an apartment with two other volunteers. They seem like lovely young women!
This is an unpaid full time volunteer experience. We get a monthly stipend of $100, room and board are covered, as well as transportation around Chicago. We are to live in community, will have spiritual guidance and prayer time with the nearby Dominican friars, and are encouraged to live simply.
I am super excited to begin training at Maryknoll, in Ossining, NY August 4th-10th and then to drive out with one of my roommates to Chicago on August 10th.
I could not be more blessed!
