Dominican novices visit St. Catherine Newman Center

Intermountain Catholic

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Dominican Father Anthony Rosevear

SALT LAKE CITY — Dominican Father Anthony Rosevear and four Dominican novices visited Saint Catherine of Siena Newman Center July 6-11 to give a reflection on their vocations.

St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center is a campus ministry of the Western Province Dominicans, based in Oakland, Calif.

"We travel with the novices to all of our Dominican ministries on the West Coast so the novices can meet the brothers to see what they will be doing in the future; it’s helpful for them to discern if this is really their calling," said Fr. Rosevear.

The novices enter the novitiate for one year before making temporary vows. They will have seven years of formal study in philosophy and theology before making solemn vows and being ordained priests, said Fr. Rosevear.

The novices who visited St. Catherine of Siena this year were Brothers Jonathan Lepak, Gregory Liu, Pius Youn and Matthew Peddemors.

Before entering the novitiate, Brother Lepak worked as an English as a Second Language teacher in Oklahoma City, New York City, Portland and Japan. After teaching, he began to discern a call to monastic life and lived for about six months at the New Camaldoli Hermitage in Big Sur, Calif. After moving on from the hermitage, he continued to explore other vocations in the church and finally applied to the Western Province Dominicans.

"I enjoy studying, art, music and journeying along in life to unexpected places," Brother Lepak said. "The Order of Preachers (Dominicans) holds a great diversity of ways to follow Christ and I find that encouraging."

Brother Lepak’s vocation has grown in many different stages, he said. "The first time I really remember feeling the Lord come into my heart was in the sixth grade, growing up in Catholic schools in Oklahoma City, and then again in my freshman year in high school," he said. "We had a vocation day where a priest from the local diocese came to talk about the priesthood, and I wanted to stand up and say ‘Yes, that’s it, I’m ready.’ But I was in a back pew and I didn’t have the courage to go with that voice in my heart. The feeling came again when I was in a theology class my junior year."

In high school Brother Lepak also won a writing competition for a three-week pilgrimage in Israel.

"Coming from Oklahoma and for the first time seeing the Holy Land, the ancient world, was amazing," he said. "Looking back, my mind was really changed and I decided I wanted to get away from where I was and away from who I was and experience other cultures, world religions, new food and languages."

Brother Lepak went to a non-Catholic environment to Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. After two years, he felt out of place and decided to go home to Oklahoma State University, where he received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English. Nine years passed as he tutored as an ESL teacher, fell in love and was contemplating marriage.

"Although the relationship had been a real blessing in my life, I wasn’t ready to get married and let go of the calling in my heart," Brother Lepak said. "It was in Portland that a group of Dominican novices came through and I heard a novice give his story … I returned to Japan, and started reading a massive amount of literature on the Church."

Brother Lepak also went to India and spoke to a Catholic Indian monk and asked him what the secret was. "He said I already knew the answer: ‘All you have to do is give yourself.’ I left India and went to Rome and to Confession and heard the words again, ‘Give yourself.’ I knew not to just give myself in devotion, but to surrender to the Lord and let the Holy Spirit guide my way."