GranteeInFoCUS

Freedom to discern

 

Early one Saturday morning, Greg Dunn knocked on the house of the Dominican novitiate in Irving, Texas. A tall friar with a bald head and a booming voice said in a deep voice, “I hear you’re discerning a vocation.”

 

Dunn was terrified. “I remember thinking ‘What am I doing?’”

 

That weekend encounter would turn into a fruitful journey to following God’s call to a religious vocation. That same friar, Father Scott O’Brien, O.P. would later vest Dunn in his priestly chasuble at his ordination, which took place on June 10, 2023.

 

Dunn graduated from Texas A&M University in College Station with a master’s in accounting and had a CPA job lined up, but he recalls sitting in his parent’s kitchen talking about various religious communities with his mom, who went to Ohio Dominican University in Columbus and was suggested he check out the Dominicans.
 

 

Faithfilled support

 

His family’s Catholic faith was an important part of his formative years. “We went to Mass every Sunday. We prayed in the home. We had meals together. I had a very supportive family,” he says. “That gives me a lot of motivation as a priest to help families, especially help parents as they are the first formators of faith for their children.”

 

Today, Dunn, 31, serves as a chaplain at the Catholic Student Center at Texas Tech University in Lubbock. He lives with three other Dominicans at nearby St. Elizabeth Church. His ministry as a college chaplain is one he is passionate about because his own college experience was a transformative time for his faith life.

 

“When I was a freshman at Texas A&M, I was able to meet good mentors, good people. Campus ministry welcomed me in the door,” he says. “They were people I wanted to be around. They encouraged me to pray, to go to daily Mass. They created a 'culture of vocations,' for both men and women. From there, I started asking the deeper questions. ‘What am I called to do?’ ”

 

Now, Dunn hopes to do the same for students at Texas Tech. “I saw priests lead faithful, fruitful lives. I had models; I had people to look up to. Those people gave me a vision. Seeing their joy and the fullness of life was inspiring,” he says.
 

 

Rooted in Dominican charism

 

At the heart of Dominican spirituality is to contemplate and share the fruits of that contemplation, says Dunn. “We begin with morning prayer in our community. During the day we go out and do our various ministries,” he said. “In the evenings, we come back and have evening prayer together and Mass. Our preaching ministry flows from our spirituality. In Dominican life, it’s a back and forth rhythm. That’s what attracted me to the community.”
 

At the time Dunn was contemplating a religious vocation, he had just accepted a job offer for a CPA position, a dream he had worked for in college in an intensive program. “I sent an email to the partner at the accounting firm explaining I was thinking about joining this religious order.” On top of that stress, Dunn had thousands of dollars in education debt, a fact that garnered its own amount of trepidation.

 

“I was grateful for those experiences, and it was money well spent,” Dunn says. But the reality was, he wasn’t sure how he was going to fulfill his financial obligation while also giving his discernment a viable shot. “I really felt I had to give it a try, I had to see. You can only learn so much by reading and researching. To actually discern this life, you have to do it in the flesh and blood,” he says. With the help from a grant from the National Fund for Catholic Religious Vocations, Father Dunn was able to do just that. “I was able to make the minimum payments on my student loans during my novitiate and that allowed me the freedom to be able to discern,” he says. As he kept going in his formation, the feeling of freedom to be able to discern shifted to one of thankfulness: “I just feel this immense sense of gratitude. This is what I am called to do.”