The Dominican Brother: 2 Brother Paul Byrd

Just yesterday I was sitting at a table in the gathering space of the Newman Center of the University of New Mexico talking to a young graduate student seriously discerning a vocation to Dominican priesthood. Sometimes, walking with someone in his vocation discernment can be a heavy task; but at other times, things lighten up, and you get to hear a guy day dream about what it will be like to be a priest. My young friend was thinking of the weddings and baptisms that he would be asked to do, and the joy on his face made me smile.

Unlike my friend, I never had those kinds of day dreams when I was discerning my vocation to the Dominican Order. Like all Dominican friars, I had a desire to preach, that’s true, but at the heart of my vocation was an even greater desire — the desire to give my life completely to God. For me, giving one’s life to God is what professing vows as a religious is all about. The giving of self to God is caused by an intense love for him. This love is so strong that not to become a religious would be like a man not marrying the woman he’s madly in love with which doesn’t make any sense.

This approach to explaining religious brotherhood may come as a surprise to many who think that having a vocation is primarily about function, that is, what one does. I reject this idea, and say that religious life is first and foremost a way of life designed to help a person shed all obstacles to his proper relationship to God and neighbor. This is how I understand the text that played such an important part in my discernment: “If you want to be perfect, go, sell everything you have, give to the poor … and then follow me” (Matthew 19:21). The vows allow a person to let go of particular things so that he may freely give himself to others, and freely receive others in return.

Br Paul Byrd is a Cooperator Brother of the Dominican Central Province of the United States and is currently residing in Albuquerque, New Mexico