As Heather Foucault-Camm glanced at her wedding ring, a sign of the most significant vow of her life, she couldn’t help but draw comparisons to the commitment she was preparing to make – namely, to Dominican spirituality as a tertiary member. “I was freaking out because this vow was something new,” shared Foucault-Camm, the program director for the Science and Religion Initiative at the McGrath Institute for Church Life at the University of Notre Dame. Drawn to marriage, she gave herself fully to the vocation but now faced a new commitment – one to a religious order. It was only when she said to herself,  “I’m not expected to be certain, but expected to be open,” that she discerned to become a novice. And one year later, her attitude of openness led her to profess temporary vows and become a lay member of the Dominican order. Photos by Clare HildebrandtThe 17 new lay Dominicans and others celebrate after they professed temporary vows at the St. Augustine Chapel at Notre Dame on Tuesday, December 3. On Tuesday, December 3, in South Bend, Foucault-Camm and 16 other lay members of the Church temporarily promised to live according to Dominican spirituality, committing their next three years to prayer. Moving beyond the status of novice, these men and women now participate as full members of the Dominican Order and are obligated to adopt its daily habits. And in accordance with God’s will, they will profess their perpetual vows in three years. Family, friends, and colleagues of the 17 met at St. Augustine Chapel on Notre Dame’s campus to celebrate Mass and observe the prayers. The Chapel’s interior, decorated in black and white, also known as Dominican colors, fit the occasion perfectly. As Foucault-Camm knelt to make her vow, she met Don Stelluto, provincial president for the central province of Dominican lay communities and of the chapter at St. Pius X, who was leading the prayer. Throughout the course of the past year, it was Stelluto who heavily guided the community. When speaking with interested men and women, he first notes that becoming a tertiary member is a unique calling: “Sometimes folks look at lay vocations as though someone is looking for a middle ground between religious vocation and living in the world,” Stelluto said. “No, it’s something very specific. We’re called to live our lives in the world according to a charism, a way of living, that brings us closer to God first and foremost.” Stelluto told Today’s Catholic he often clarifies that Dominican saints, particularly Dominican tertiary saints, are known for far more than just intellectual thought. “Often, when we think of Dominicans, thinkers with lofty appeals to thought and theology come to mind, but the Dominican family actually has quite a huge range.” Stelluto listed St. Margaret Castello, abandoned by her family as a child for her deformity, as a spiritual giant of the order, along with St. Catherine of Siena, both of whom were third-order Dominicans. “You don’t need to be Thomas Aquinas, you just have to have a heart for God,” Stelluto said with a smile. About 10 years ago, Stelluto tried to form a tertiary discernment group but could not “get it off the ground and rolling.” It was not until two years ago that the Holy Spirit began to move and discernment began. “I had people contact me out of the blue – it was the Spirit moving, and we wound up with 23 postulants,” Stelluto said. “We haven’t done any advertising; it’s all word of mouth, or should I say, word of the Holy Spirit.” A novice professes temporary vows, becoming a full member of the Dominican Order at the Mass at the St. Augustine Chapel at Notre Dame on Tuesday, December 3. Postulants begin with a six-month period of discernment until they are received into the community as novices. From there, they spend a year’s time in further formation until they are ready to make a temporary profession of vows. During the year of formation, novices practice the four pillars of Dominican spirituality: prayer, study, preaching, and community. “The year of study is really just getting your footing, your ‘Dominican sea legs,’ in other words, while raising questions and working through issues. It culminates in the temporary profession, which then leads to the perpetual profession,” Stelluto explained. Among the variety of lay members present, Foucault-Camm has always loved academia and pursuing God through knowledge. “I was a chemical physicist in my first career, and I very much found my foothold in the faith by seeking understanding through reason,” Foucault-Camm said. “You know, Anselm says, ‘Faith seeks understanding.’ For me, it’s very much approaching this through reason.” However, in her faith journey, Foucault-Camm said her love of reason also became somewhat of a stumbling block. “I started studying theology and took up spiritual direction,” she said. “As I studied theology more, participating in the holy sacrifice of the Mass becomes thinking when the priest gives his homily, ‘Oh, well, that’s not the Church’s moral tradition …’ or, ‘is that really the best person to quote there?’” She desired to grow closer to God through the intellect without stifling the Holy Spirit. “I was intensely concerned that because I access God through knowledge, my faith would become less of a gift that it truly is and more like intellectual exercise.” Foucault-Camm said she needed guidance and a spiritual structure that directed her love of God in knowledge. She found Dominican spirituality helped her to cultivate that love, but it did not stop there; it expanded her ability to receive. “As scientists, our lives are directed toward figuring stuff out,” the former chemical astrophysicist said. “The spirituality gave me a different view toward openness and receptivity.” During the profession of vows, Foucault-Camm sat behind the other 16 novices and meditated on their roles as her spiritual  brothers and sisters. “I was able to kind of meditate and pray for each one of the 16 people in front of me, each of them had a unique vocation,” she said. “They were all puzzle pieces in this kind of composite that is the Body of Christ, which was beautiful for me to watch.” As an immigrant to the United States from Canada, Foucault-Camm does not have family in the South Bend area but still felt overwhelmingly supported. “I don’t have any family in attendance, but I saw people from my work, my academic life, people from the lives of my sisters and brothers who weren’t necessarily their family also standing for us. And I was like, ‘You know what? This is what the Body of Christ looks like.’ We are all united in this kind of shared love for God and His creation.” Feeling filled from her profession, she came to the conclusion that she “wants people to know about a vocation to the Dominican life through action, and that “it orients my gaze outward, to the world and to others.” Clare Hildebrandt is a staff writer for Today’s Catholic. The post Seventeen Lay Dominicans Profess Vows at Notre Dame appeared first on Today's Catholic.