Religious Life

I entered the seminary after I graduated from high school, at the tender age of seventeen. At that time I did not have a clear idea of what to be a Dominican meant. The only thing I knew then was that I wanted to become a priest. And my idea of a priest was that of a minister of the sacraments. My former parish priest gave me an idea of the difference between a secular or diocesan priest and a religious or missionary priest. When my father told me that if ever I become a priest, they will live in my parish convent and they will take care of the mass collections. I was somehow turned off with his idea of the life of a parish priest. And so I decided to join the Dominican Order because I wanted to be a missionary. But I did not realize that to be a Dominican is to be a religious, and to be a religious is to profess the vows of poverty, chastity and obedience. The only thing I knew then was that if I wanted to become a priest, I will have to give up the idea of getting married.

And so, after spending three years in the Dominican Pre-Novitiate and a year in the Novitiate, I made my first religious profession. This made me an official member of the Dominican Order. In a ceremony within the mass, I made my temporary vows for three years, affixing my signature to a document in the presence of the Prior Provincial. Upon completing three years of simple or temporary profession, I was asked to profess another year of temporary vows. After that I made my solemn or perpetual profession of religious vows, and made a promise to be obedient for life to the Master of the Dominican Order and to the Prior Provincial of the Dominican Province of the Philippines. Each time we make a religious profession, we prostrate in front of the superior who asks us, “What do you seek?” and to which we reply, “God’s mercy and yours.”
As a religious and a student preparing to be an ordained minister, I spent eight years of a life of prayer and study in the seminary. We were allowed to keep a small amount of money as a monthly allowance, which I used to buy books, school supplies and some personal needs. At the end of each month, we were required to submit an accounting of the amount of money that we received either from our family, friends or benefactors. We were also required to submit our expenses. There were things that were provided by our religious community like food and transportation, our Dominican Habit and toiletries.

Before I entered the seminary, I thought that once inside the seminary, I will never have the chance to go out of its four walls or even to visit my family. But after I made my religious profession, the priest in charge of our religious formation gave each of us a key to the main door of the seminary. If ever we wanted to go out, we just have to write our name in a log book, the time that we will be out and the time that we will be back. He told us that religious life is a life of responsible obedience and faithfulness to our religious promises. We should be responsible enough to know when it is time for study, prayer or recreation.

We were also not prohibited from having friends outside of the seminary and to accept them as visitors every scheduled visiting day. But we were often told that the friendships we develop should not be exclusive. Probably it is also one way of checking if our vocation is really for religious life or not. But some of us actually developed exclusive and particular friendships. They actually realized, sooner or later, that they wanted a life with a family of their own and that they are not for a religious community life.