Mitchell

remember being Catholic, my parents tried to foster an appreciation and love of our faith within my siblings and I, though I did not live this out very devoutly in my own soul until high school and college.

I first thought that I was called to the priesthood very suddenly in CCD class when I was around 15 years old.  I ran from this thought for years, though I did have some vague, positive desires to be “a monk” when I was 16 or so.  From 2013-2016, I had a future Dominican Friar as my youth minister.  His real and ardent belief in and love of Jesus, Mary, and the faith made a deep impression on me. I became aware of the Dominican Order in 2016 when the same youth minister told my brother and I that he was joining the Order; this was shortly before I began undergraduate studies.

Although I spent time pursuing girls and making plans for paths of life other than the priesthood, I did also slowly begin to be more open to the thought of the priesthood and religious life during my time in college. Late in college, I began to move forward in the spiritual life much more than in the past.  I think it was during the following year that I would begin having strong desires (rather than thoughts and slight desires) for the priesthood.

During graduate school and after, I was in a serious relationship with a woman.  This lasted several years and we strongly considered getting married, but we both had hesitations and were not sure if marriage was the right decision for us.  I had been planning to join the Dominicans when I met her in 2020 and I was conflicted about this at times throughout the relationship.  Ultimately, partly through reading about several Dominican saints and partly through other things, including conversations with friars that I know, I decided that I thought it was best that I broke the relationship off in order to pursue the Order.  We ended the relationship in 2023.  This took me a long time to do, and I had a lot of hesitation, but I found that once I had broken the relationship off, I was very much at peace with having done so.

Not long after ending the relationship, I began talking with the Order.    I was told to wait some time until after the relationship had ended before applying.  I made vocations visits to several houses and spent a long time waiting for application to begin.

The period starting with my choice to end my relationship, leading up until now, has been a helpful period of life.  This has been the first time I have been able to successfully spend a large amount of time determined to join the Order, though having to wait.  When I ended my relationship, I had only just moved away from Steubenville back to my hometown.  And within this period of waiting I have had the opportunity to establish enough of a post-relationship pattern of life that I have felt like I have grew as a person during this time.  I had never had a previous period of life where I was not only out of school and making enough money to pay for insurance, rent, utilities, and other expenses, but also doing volunteer work and keeping myself disciplined about prayer and study, so this has been an important period where I have matured.  Ultimately all this has helped me to understand more clearly what I am doing by embracing the religious life, because I have managed to establish a life for myself right now that I enjoy very much, but that I know, in the end, I am choosing to give up in order to pursue Jesus.

My exposure to the Dominican Order was sporadic for a long time, but I was exposed to enough elements of the Order that I began to be drawn to its charism more and more over time. I especially became drawn to the Order’s emphases on study, truth, and the primacy of grace and God’s causality in our lives, as well the roles of contemplation and preaching in the Order. Throughout my time in college and graduate studies, I attended several important Dominican events: Simple Vows and Ordinations.  These vows and ordinations have given me concrete examples of what, God willing, it will be like to experience these things in the Order one day.  Hence, these have helped me to grow in my desire for living a priestly life, under vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience.

In addition to my youth minister (who remains a close friend) having become a friar, there have been a few other concrete examples in my life of what it could look like to be a Dominican friar. I spent some time working under a friar in campus ministry at Youngstown State University.  Additionally, I have gotten to know a friar who teaches at the House of Studies during the last few years.  These have both helped me to understand what the actual life of a Dominican friar can look like, as opposed to having an imagined idea in my head.

I want to be a priest and a Dominican friar because I want to love and serve Jesus as much as I can, and I believe that being a priest of the Dominican friars of the Province of St. Joseph is the best way that I can do that.  I want to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass, hear confessions, preach, and perhaps teach as well.  But I would like to do all of that with an eye to living out the Dominican charism and being consecrated to the truth in a determinate way.  This took me a long time to see clearly, but it is something that I desire very much.

Can you help alleviate the obstacle of student loans and support other men and women who desire to serve our Church?