Young men have responded to God’s call, receiving the Dominican habit in a special ceremony. The ceremony video surprised social media users and went viral.
The vocational apostolate of the Dominicans in Poland, or “Powołania Dominikanie,” dedicates its ministry to promoting priestly vocations. They recently shared a video on Instagram of the moment when young men say “yes” to God and enter religious life.
This special ceremony, known as the “rite of vestition,” marks the beginning of the novitiate and consists of the local superior dressing the postulant in the traditional Dominican habit.
In the video, the young men approach the altar while the choir sings, “Jak dziecko jest moja dusza, o Panie” (“My soul is like a child, O Lord”).
“In the mystery of the vocation of each of you, there is a hidden voice of God that invites you to trust him–the one from which the voice comes with great confidence: all your past, all your experiences, your education, your achievements, his talents, and his entire being,” the priest says.
Dominicans in Poland
The Polish province of the Dominicans was founded in May 1228, just 12 years after the formation of the Order by Saint Dominic.
It is associated with the work of Saint Hyacinth of Poland (Saint Jacek Odrowąż), often called “Apostle of the North,” and his cousin, Blessed Ceslaus (Bł. Czesław), founders of numerous monasteries in the Czech Republic and Poland.
Ceslaus, Jacinto, and their companions received the habit of the Order directly from Saint Dominic in the year 1220.
Currently in Poland, there are 434 Dominican friars, 45 cloistered Dominican nuns, 426 Dominican Sisters of the Immaculate Conception, and 750 laymen (or secular Dominicans).
In the Polish province, there are a total of 20 Dominican monasteries, convents, and monastic houses. The first in Krakow dates back to 1223, while the most recent opened in 2019 in Jamna. The current provincial of the Dominicans in Poland is Father Łukasz Wiśniewski, O.P.
The Dominican Habit
The Dominican vocations page explains that the habit “is a distinctive type of clothing worn by various religious communities in the Catholic Church.”
“Like many other religious orders, our habit is a symbol of our spirituality, our way of life, and a significant sacramental in our living of the consecrated life in the Catholic Church,” the religious order explains.
The complete Dominican habit consists of five garments:
“The tunic is a long ankle-length garment, with long sleeves that can be simply folded up, or have buttons to hold those folds in place. “The scapular is a long piece of cloth with a hole cut in the middle for the head; the cloth then hangs over the shoulders and covers the front and back of the tunic. It should be about a hand’s width from the bottom of the tunic, and wide enough to cover the ‘juncture of the sleeves with the tunic.'”The capuce is a hood attached to a circular piece of cloth that falls over the shoulders and comes down to a point in the small of the back. This hood used to be simply attached to the scapular (like a Carthusian’s habit) but at some point, it became detached from the scapular and evolved into a rather elegant shoulder-cape with hood.”The black cappa, from which we get the name Black Friars, is a large cape that covers most of the white habit. It was worn for warmth and when traveling. This too had a hood that became detached, resulting in a black capuce.
“The entire Dominican habit thus has five items of clothing, plus a leather belt and the Rosary.”