Embarking on the Path to Dominican Laity

I have gotten quite a few shocked expressions when I say that I am a Lay Dominican postulant, so I’d love to share my discernment story of how someone “so young” found her way to the Order of Preachers. But first, I need to give some backstory on how I even became Catholic.

I grew up without any faith formation after my baptism in November of 2001, and it wasn’t until I was a freshman in high school that I yearned to find happiness. I was depressed, alone, treated poorly in my friend group and I thought to myself, there has to be something more out there for me. So I looked to the happiest person I knew and saw that her joy came from her faith. I knew that I was baptized as a baby in the Catholic Church, but other than that I knew nearly nothing about Catholicism.

So I did what any tech savvy teen would do--I Googled it. I stumbled across a blog called “LifeTeen” and read through their hundreds of articles. When I didn’t have 30-50 tabs open at once, I was trying to pray the rosary. My grandmother made me a beautiful purple rosary that I kept my whole childhood, and so I asked my mom to teach me to pray it. Before I even bought my first Bible, Mama Mary was showing me who her Son was.

Through the inconceivable graces Mary bestowed on me by praying the rosary every night, I was finally able to join a CCD class the beginning of my sophomore year. Those classes weren’t teaching me anything I hadn’t already learned from my internet lurking so a few months in, I decided I needed something else to help me grow spiritually. So I joined the parish youth group. I made holy friends who didn’t belittle me, who prayed for me, and who helped me when I stumbled or felt the burdens of my conversion. The weekly talks fueled a fire in my heart for Christ, and by November 2017, I was sick of waiting to receive the sacraments. My faith had stumbled during the summer without the routine of youth group and Mass (I still couldn’t drive myself). So during adoration one November evening, I saw my friends lined up for confession and I cried. I cried because I was feeling the burdens of my sins and I wanted so badly to have them washed away.

On St. Andrew’s feast day, I asked my Youth Director if it was possible to move up my Confession and Communion, so I didn’t have to wait six months to receive them before my Confirmation. He said he would talk to our pastor at their upcoming staff meeting. Coincidentally, that Monday night at my CCD class, it was confession day, and so I had to awkwardly go up to my teacher and tell him I couldn’t go. He said, “Well, today can be your first confession.” The religious education director was right there and agreed with him, and I realized I had 20 minutes to go over approximately 16 years of sin to confess. I went in, confessed, came out to do my penance, and felt absolutely nothing. I was expecting to

feel clean, made anew...and I felt nothing. I say this to give hope to converts that you may not feel anything when you receive the Sacraments but the grace is there in abundance anyway! The next morning I received an email from my Youth Director telling me that Father had said I could go to confession anytime. But what he said next was even better. Father’s exact words on the subject of me receiving Holy Communion for the first time were, “Let Jesus’ gift to you be His very self.” I was given permission to have my first Communion on Christmas. I was overwhelmed and so excited. I knelt down and received our Lord for the first time on Christmas morning in 2017.

Then in May 2018, under the name Catherine of Siena, I was confirmed into the Catholic Church. The day was hot, humid, and I tripped on the way back from receiving Communion, but I officially was Catholic! Forever and always in the Body of Christ, belonging to Holy Mother Church! I chose St. Catherine of Siena as my confirmation saint because of her patronage for those ridiculed for their faith, which I had been subject to all of my sophomore year of high school. I wouldn’t find out until later that she was a writer, a Lay Dominican, and one of four female Doctors of the Church (a.k.a a powerhouse saint!).

After my journey to the Faith was complete, I turned to discerning my vocation. This in and of itself wasn’t that difficult because I have always known in my soul that I was meant to be a wife and mother. So after a few months of asking God to make sure this was my path, I became confident in knowing that was my vocation.

After graduating high school (and ultimately youth group as well), I started to falter in confidence in the Lord. I didn’t know where I was supposed to go. I didn’t have the means to go to school, I couldn’t find a job, and I didn’t have the faith community that I was so used to during my conversion.

I began to write for an online prolife organization called “Human Defense Initiative” where I met my good friend Isaiah. We began talking on Twitter, and eventually started texting and chatting on the phone, and he told me that he was discerning the Lay Dominicans in his area. I hadn’t recalled hearing about this group before, so I researched what the Lay Dominicans were, and found out my own patron saint was a Lay Dominican!

That same summer, a dear family friend of mine announced she was going to enter postulancy at the Dominican Sisters of St. Cecilia in Nashville. Within a week of that announcement I saw a blog post on a popular website for Catholic women talking about the Lay Dominicans. Dominicans just seemed to be constantly popping up for some reason.

I took the hint and started researching once again. I looked up my closest chapters, watched videos, started reading about St. Dominic, and asked my friend Isaiah what he was learning during his postulancy. After months of doing research and learning on my own I decided to try to reach out to my closest chapter. I got so excited

that the chapter closer to me recently made a website with a contact form so I could reach out and take the first step.

After a brief talk with a wonderful lady named Lisa, I knew that this was the right decision. There isn’t only one reason that made me know. I think it was just a lot of signal graces. For example, this chapter’s apostolate is the promotion of the Rosary, which I was praying before I even realized I wanted to enter the Church. Yet another example, Lisa and I both are photographers, both enjoy journalistic work, know some of the same people, and all of these things just fell together in a way that was too perfect to be coincidental. I felt a sense of peace talking to her, learning about the Dominican life, and I recognized this peace because it is the same peace I feel when I am at adoration (half asleep) talking to the Lord.

I have always been a bookworm and sponge when it comes to learning, and I am excited to be able to have study buddies for life, as well as having the wise words of those older than me who I know can give me guidance and pray for me. May the Blessed Mother, St. Dominic, and St. Catherine all lead me closer to the Sacred Heart of Jesus!

*Editor’s note: Erin recently took the first step in discerning a vocation as a lay Dominican. We will be following along with her in future issues as she progresses through postulancy in the coming year. Please keep her in your prayers. If you feel called to explore your vocation more deeply, we invite you to visit the website of the lay Dominican Chapter here in Prince William County at www.lfsd513.com for more information.