The Paths of four Particular Spiritual Journeys

Intermountain Catholic

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Dominican Brothers (from left) Dominic David Maichrowicz and Ambrose Sigman and Fathers Anthony Rosevear and Peter Rogers, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center Parish, reflect on their spiritual journeys. Each of them came to the Dominicans from vastly different backgrounds, experiences, and even faiths. IC photo by Barbara S. Lee

SALT LAKE CITY — What might draw you to a total commitment to prayer and service in a religious order? Four men – two priests and two novice brothers – have come to their vocations taking different paths. Their calls to service in the Church have only one thing in common – God’s persistence.

Novice Brothers Ambrose Signan and Dominic David Maichrowicz have just begun the life-long discernment process that may or may not lead them to the Dominican priesthood. Dominican Fathers Anthony Rosevear and Peter Rogers, pastor of St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center Parish on the University of Utah campus, have decades of priesthood between them but admit that their discernment, their search for their own path to the cross of Christ, continues.

"A novice is an individual who has a strong interest in the Dominican Order and is spending a year experiencing its traditions, its people, and its charisms (gifts) without taking vows," said Brother Ambrose. "We are living the life of Dominicans, but we are free to leave any time."

Father Anthony, novice master for the San Francisco Province of the Dominicans, the Order of Preachers, said there is discernment on both sides. "While novices are discerning their vocations, we are discerning their appropriateness for our community."

Father Peter, a Dominican for 10 years, entered the Order from St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center, where as a university student he first met Dominican Father Cashian Lewinski.

"Fr. Cashian was the first Dominican I’d ever met," said Fr. Peter. "Before I entered the Dominicans, I was a candidate for the diocesan priesthood."

Brother Dominic is a native of Temple City, Calif., near Pasadena. Brother Ambrose came to the Dominicans from West Palm Beach, Fla., growing up in Las Vegas, Nev.

Their novice master, Fr. Anthony, a Dominican for 33 years, entered from Butte, Mont., after spending five years at Gonzaga University in Spokane, Wash.

Each man’s search was personal, different, and reveals how God is using their gifts to summon them closer to him and to the people they serve.

"I was attracted to the Dominican Order by its commitment to living and working in community," said Brother Ambrose. "These days, diocesan priests can lead very separate, individual lives. In the Dominican Order, community life is vital."

Reflecting on a time when several diocesan priests served each parish, Fr. Peter said, "often diocesan priests shared large rectories that were built with individual suites – some had no areas for eating or praying in common.

"In religious life, we live together as family – as brothers. We pray together and share meals. At St. Catherine’s, Father James Thompson and a new Dominican priest to Utah, Father Dennis Keating, and I live in community. We pray together every day at 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. We have Mass at noon every day, although sometimes our schedules conflict, and we may have to have our own private Masses. We share our responsibilities at the Newman Center and at the university, meeting the needs of students and the lay members of our parish."

Fr. Peter said the three resident priests at the Newman Center share Wednesday Lunch With a Priest duties, making certain one of them is always available at a Student Union cafeteria lunch table to eat and chat with students, faculty members, or staff.

The visiting novices are two of about 30 men in formal studies and investigating the Dominican order, said Fr. Anthony. "We’re holding our own in the area of vocations. We have about 160 men in the entire province, which includes Alaska, Mexico, and the states west of the Continental Divide. We have our own schools of philosophy and theology, and we also have a preaching band, priests who travel the country preaching and offering retreats.

For Brother Dominic, the weaving together of work and spirituality is what attracted him to the Dominicans. He hopes to one day teach in a university setting and serve in a parish.

For Brother Ambrose, taking a vow of poverty, (Dominicans take vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience) has a certain appeal, as does the vow of obedience, which could find him serving eventually anywhere in the Western Province, in Rome, Spain, or Switzerland.

"As Dominicans, we experience a constant struggle for balance between contemplation – prayer, and action," said Fr. Anthony. "A great part of our contemplative life involves prayerful study of the truth, or ‘veritas,’ and sharing it with others. It is important that we know what the Church teaches and why."

As a child, Fr. Peter used to play at being a priest. By the time he reached his teens, he’d begun to drift away from the idea of being a priest. "In college, I forgot it all together, but the death of a dear friend brought me back to the church. I know that I had been continually thinking about the priesthood, and it wasn’t until I returned to the church that I realized those thoughts weren’t my thoughts – they were God’s thoughts that I was pushing away. God kept pushing, and I realized I had to submit. When I realized that, I experienced a profound sense of peace."

Now 42, Fr. Peter looks back on a teaching career that has taken him to American schools overseas, and back to Salt Lake City, where he first returned to the church.

Fr. Anthony speaks of being "blessed with the seeds of a Catholic education. I was influenced by the Sisters in our Catholic school."

He, too, wandered away from the church for 10 years in early adulthood, but he never lost the sense that he was being called to a deeper, more spiritual life than he was living.

"God is persistent," Fr. Anthony said. "While it seemed like I was running away from God, I was really running toward him. I met my first Dominican in Florence, Italy. He influenced me greatly."

Brother Ambrose is 25. His mother, a Jehovah’s Witness, came from a large family, and was an overseer of one of the church’s kingdom halls.

"First, my father, who had been raised a Catholic, became disillusioned, and then my mother did," he said. "I was raised essentially without a religion. When my parents divorced, I experienced a crisis of emptiness."

Brother Ambrose began to explore his father’s original faith, and converted to Catholicism when he was a junior in high school.

"I began to look deeper into the ordained life," he said, "and I got in touch with the vocations director for the Diocese of Las Vegas. After taking a year off from school, I entered the seminary in California and studied for the diocesan priesthood for two-and-a-half years. I earned a Bachelor’s Degree in philosophy."

His seminary advisor, Dominican Father John Flannery, introduced Brother Ambrose to Dominican spirituality, which resulted in a re-evaluation of his goals and priorities.

"Fr. John talked to me about study, the saints, the rosary, and teaching. I applied to the Dominicans and was accepted on the Feast of the Assumption of Mary."

The son of an Italian mother, Brother Dominic grew up going to Mass on Sundays. He fell in love with serving at the altar when he became old enough to do so, and sometimes imagined himself the priest. He was still serving at the altar when he entered California Polytech in San Louis Obispo, Calif., beginning a career in computer engineering.

"I went to the Newman Center at the university. I was dating an Evangelical Protestant girl, and I though she would be impressed if I joined a Bible study class."

That decision, he said, made for all the wrong reasons, changed his life entirely.

"My Bible study teacher really knew the Bible, and he made it all real for me. He explained Catholic doctrine and social teaching, and I fell in love with it. A year later I was at a point at which I put my life in God’s hands."

Brother Dominic said he’d experienced a flood of people telling him he would make a good priest. "I freaked out. This was not part of my plan. A good friend of mine took me out and said, ‘It’s a calling. You don’t have to answer.’"

What followed, he said, was "eternal bombardment" that created a great internal desire to become a priest. "God made me comfortable with the idea through the people he placed in my life."

Brother Dominic began studying at Franciscan University in Steubenville, Ohio, after doing a stint for Disney’s Imagineering Studios.

Fr. Anthony said he loves the fall each year when new novices tell their faith stories.

"It reminds me every year of the thread God creates that draws lives together," he said. "It’s fascinating and it’s hopeful. As novice master, I get to see the mustard seen of faith in each life, and I get to watch it continue to grow."

Fr. Anthony said he is delighted to see each class of new novices and the young women, alive and vibrant, who are entering the Dominican sisters.

"Since the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), we have experienced a certain dying to forms, but not a dying of meaning. Now, we are seeing younger people entering our order who value our history and our tradition. They are embracing the future of the Catholic Church and the great heritage of our faith, which is very rich."

If we gathered any four priests together, diocesan or religious, and asked them to tell their stories, none of them would be the same. God’s call, as Archbishop-designate George Niederauer reminded us, "isn’t always like St. Paul being knocked off his horse."

Most often, for men and women, it is a still, quiet, and persistent voice that transcends the noise and busy-ness of modern life.