COTTONWOOD HEIGHTS — The St. Catherine of Siena Lay Dominicans recognized two of their members during a Dec. 7 Mass at Saint Thomas More Catholic Church. Mick Collins made his life profession, and Marianna Hopkins was received into the chapter. Both say that the emphasis on prayer, study and community attracted them to the Dominicans.
“I like to study, and I like to learn, and that’s really a Dominican thing,” said Collins, who went through RCIA about a decade ago. Once he entered the Church, he wanted a more focused study in theology, he said. While exploring different Catholic groups, he came upon the lay Dominicans, which is comprised of members of the laity who try to live their lives according to the charisms of the order.
Utah is home to two chapters of lay Dominicans. The St. Catherine of Siena chapter meets at St. Thomas More Catholic Church; the Our Lady of Victory chapter meets at St. Catherine of Siena Newman Center in Salt Lake City.
When he joined the St. Catherine of Seina group about five years ago, “I was like a fish in water,” Collins said, adding that as a lay Dominican he is gaining an ever-deepening understanding of God and also has a community where he can talk to people about theology, philosophy and similar topics.
One need not be a scholar to approach these matters, he said. Meister Eckhart, a well-known 13th-century Dominican theologian, said that “everybody can understand the real concepts of what God’s nature is, and how we worship and why we worship,” Collins said.
For example, St. Catherine of Siena was a Lay Dominican who was “largely uneducated and unlettered” and “she faced many difficult challenges in her pursuit of a spiritual life,” Collins said. “Yet, she became a Doctor [of the Church] through God’s grace and her own dedication. Every Roman Catholic can comprehend even the most profound essential doctrines of the Church and put these into practice in their lives, no matter how humble and difficult their backgrounds. The Lay Dominicans can provide an ideal community for all who seek a deep spiritual life.”
Making his life profession with the Lay Dominicans means he is committed to continuing to participate in the community, he said. In addition to praying the Divine Office and the rosary every day like other members, he has a personal apostolate of “reading, learning, writing and talking with people about whom we worship,” he said. “If you have a hunger for a deep spiritual life, then look to the great lay Dominicans. And the greatest was St. Catherine of Siena. And look to the depth of not only her spiritual life, but her life in the world. You know, she made a huge difference in her world. And so, if that’s something that you hunger for, then you ought to consider being a Lay Dominican.”
While Collins has been with the Lay Dominicans for about five years, Hopkins was just received as a novice, although she was very familiar with the group because her husband has been a member for 30 years. Over the years she had attended some Dominican events with her husband, but she never had an inclination to be received into the group until last February, when she accompanied her husband, Gary Topping, to a meeting, and afterward, “I said, ‘I’d like to learn. I’d like to step up here and do this.’”
She has no answer to the question of what prompted her change of heart, she said. “I just know that I wanted to be a part of it.”
While in some ways she’s doing it for her husband, “it’s not just for Gary,” she said. “It’s for me, OK? I love the community, I love the ritual. I’m really happy to be a part of it.”
Praying the Liturgy of the Hours three times a day is a ritual that grounds her, gives her a focus point, and is “a reverence that I love,” she said.
The prayer life, the study and the community all are “a way of helping me to become a better person,” she added.
A self-described loner, being part of a community is new to her, she said, but “I like these people a lot, and I like being a part of them. And I don’t know how to explain it beyond that; it’s just good. It’s just a nice feeling.”
Like Collins, Hopkins is a convert to Catholicism. A member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a child, she became “an avid atheist” before realizing in her 30s “that I am a spiritual person, and I need a place to exercise that spirituality, and that’s what took me to the Catholic Church,” she said.
Now, having been received into the Lay Dominicans as a novice, she will spend up to three years discerning whether to continue. One change she already appreciates is that she and her husband now sometimes pray together, which they had never done before except during Mass, she said, but now “we sometimes sit down together in the evening and we do evening prayer, and … it’s pretty special.”
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