Ordo Praedicatorum

Preaching the Gospel to the whole world

Do you have a desire to intensify your personal relationship with Jesus and to share this relationship in service to your brothers and sisters in Christ?

Are you interested in being poor, joyful, disciplined, learned, rooted in prayer and eager to live the life of a Dominican coperator brother?

Are you interested in joining us in continuing the great tradition of the Dominican Order through contemplation and sharing the fruit of that contemplation in service to others?

Are you ready to take the risk of following the path and vision of St. Dominic in order to spread the Gospel message of true compassion and healing wherever people are in need? If you answered “yes” to any of these questions, God might be calling you to become a Dominican cooperator brother!

Who Are We?

Dominican cooperator brothers in the Order of Friars Preachers are consecrated men religious whose vocations are rooted in the sacrament of baptism.  They are men who have freely, without condition or limitation, heard and responded to the call of Christ to follow him and to preach the Kingdom of God by all they say and do.

The cooperator brother’s lived expression of his Dominican vocation is centered upon the vows of obedience, poverty and chastity, and is radically dependent upon a common life devoted to prayer and liturgy, study and scholarship, preaching and other ministries, and especially by caring for one another in community.

A cooperator brother aims to be committed, courageous, free, happy and holy by the power of God’s mercy made available to him through the Dominican way of life.  Under the impulse of this grace, he freely embraces suffering, trusting in God’s providence so that he can cooperate with all his brothers in community in spreading the truth of God’s Word to all the world.  A cooperator brother seeks to model his life and ministry particularly upon the example of the 16th century Peruvian saint Martin de Porres (”Martin the Charitable”) who cared for his brothers in community as well as the unwanted of his day.

The Dominican Cooperator Brother Vocation:

• is centered on the universal call to holiness by which he enters more deeply into a loving friendship with the Lord Jesus.

• is a mystery unfolding which provides a unique witness to the fact that all Dominican friars, both ordained and non-ordained, are, first and foremost, consecrated religious, bound together as friars by a common religious profession.

• is, through that common religious profession, made a full inheritor of St. Dominic’s vision and a sharer in the charism of the Order of Friars Preachers. 

What is unique about the ministry of the Dominican Cooperator Brother?  His life and ministry is:

• first and foremost a cooperation with that of his brother priests for preaching and the salvation of souls
• the dynamic expression of St. Dominic’s vision, empowering him to enter into the lives of people and travel to places wherever the Holy Preaching is desperately needed, even to places which may be more difficult for his brother priests to reach.
• exciting, challenging and life-giving because it is imbued and driven by the power of God’s Word.

A cooperator brother’s life-long commitment through vows and regular observance together with his various ministries cooperate with the grace of the Word to transform his own heart and mind, those of his brothers in community, and those to whom he is sent.  Preaching from many pulpits, brothers respond not merely with words - but with the Word of God that lives in his heart.  He is called by Divine Providence to be a contemplative preacher in the Third Millennium and is, by profession, committed and obligated to the Holy Preaching, for the evangelization of the whole world.

The formation program for men who are called to Dominican life and ministry as cooperator brothers consists of several phases:

Inquiry

This phase covers the initial investigation a man makes into the Order of Preachers such as visiting the website, receiving literature, talking with the Director of Vocations or another Dominican friars and visiting a Dominican community if one is near.  Men in this phase are usually just beginning their discernment of a religious vocation and are simply trying to gather as much information as they can.  They will often make inquiries into several religious orders at the same time. 

Aspirancy

After a man has made his initial inquiry into various religious orders including the Dominicans and after he has visited a Domincan community and talked with the Director of Vocations, if he has reached the conviction that God may be calling him to the Dominicans as a cooperator brother, then he may wish to become an aspirant of the Province.  This decision is made in consultation with the Director of Vocations and is not entered into unless the man is more or less certain that he will eventually ask to apply to the Order.  During the aspirancy phase, men continue at their current residence and employment or educational institution.  During aspirancy, a man should have a Dominican spiritual director and/or mentor where possible.  If the man lives near a Dominican community he will be invited to join the community for prayer and meals from time to time.  Men who are aspirants to the Province of St. Joseph should begin to develop a structured daily prayer life which includes but is not limited to spiritual reading, mental prayer (especially the Rosary), the reading of Sacred Scripture and attendance at daily Mass (when possible).  The length of this phase is tailored to the individual and depends on his level of maturity, length of discernment, amount of educational and/or personal debt.

Novitiate

If the aspirant is permitted to apply and is accepted by the Provincial, he then enters into a three week residential program which immediately precedes entrance into the Novitiate. The Novitiate is the formal period of testing during which the novice comes to understand his suitability as a Dominican Cooperator Brother, the nature of Dominican life and ministry, liturgy and prayer, and the history of the Order. The novice is clothed with the Dominican habit at the beginning of the Novitiate. At the conclusion of this one year period the novice petitions for permission to make Simple Profession of Vows, generally for a period of three years.

Ministry Formation Program

This builds on the foundation began in the Novitiate and focuses on the continued preparation for community life and ministry. Student cooperator brothers participate with student clerical brothers in a common formation program for Dominican life and mission under the direction of the Master of Students and his assistants as regards , i.e. preaching, the common life; study; spiritual direction; living the evangelical counsels; liturgy and prayer; pastoral competencies and behaviors of public ministers.

The specific formation program for ministries of cooperator brothers, i.e. preaching, community and professional (described below), is under the direction of the Master of Cooperator Brothers who is charged with the responsibility of assessing the interests and competencies of each cooperator brother and to facilitate his special preparation for ministry in collaboration with the Master of Students, the Prior Provincial and the Regent of Studies.

The Ministry Formation Program extends for five years following the completion of the Novitiate. Three years following First Profession of Vows, the cooperator brother petitions again to make Solemn Profession which binds him to the Order for life.

Ministries of Cooperators Brothers: Responding to the mission and needs of the Province of St. Joseph, the Church and the talents of the brother, three options for ministries may be pursued:

1. Preaching Ministries: religious education programs, catechetical formation, campus and parochial ministries, retreats and workshops, lay evangelization, pastoral counseling;

2. Community Ministries: financial management and supervision, maintenance and services of buildings and properties, health care of the brothers, food service management, sacristans, musicians, liturgical planners, stewards of devotional shrines;

3. Professional Ministries: social work; counseling; health care services, administration, and management; teaching; pastoral administration, communications media and the internet, artistic design.