Local Face: Richard Ounsworth OP (Bro)
I am very grateful to be invited to contribute to this column. Because I am in Oxford at the moment, engaged in studies, I am not able to be interviewed, so I have written the whole thing myself. Any complaints should be addressed to me!
Though born in Guildford, I moved with my parents to Wendover at the age of six months, and – apart from during nine university terms – lived there for the subsequent twenty-two years, until I left home and left ‘the world’ at the same time, to join the Noviciate of the Dominican Order, in Edinburgh. In the year before that, as some in Wendover may remember, I worked in Thresher’s in the village; I was the charming, helpful one!
Before that, I attended the John Hampden First School, Wendover Middle and then Aylesbury Grammar, where I managed to pick up, as well as a clutch of respectable exam results, a degree of self-assurance, especially in regard to speaking in public, both of which have stood me in good stead as a Dominican Friar. (Some might say learning about wine and about selling when I worked at Thresher’s are at least as useful!)
The proper name of the Order is the order of preachers, and although this preaching involves a great deal more than giving a sermon at Mass, and indeed more than any kind of public speaking, it is nevertheless an important aspect of our life, and one which I especially enjoy. The other major part of Dominican life is study, especially Theology of course, and in fact I have just begun this term to read for the Oxford University BA in Theology.
Why do I do it? Not just because I like to study, nor because I like talking, although I would not deny either of these. I first came across the Order I when I visited our parish priest of the time, Father Dermot, and told him I thought I had one of those vocations you hear about from time to time. I ought to mention at this point that I think there is a certain amount of misunderstanding of the word ‘vocation’. First of all, it’s not something a few people have, like a genetic disorder! Everyone, I believe, is best suited to a certain kind of life, for which they were made, and if they can find it they will feel ‘at home’ in it; it might be teaching, being a doctor or a priest, but the same feeling of being at home can also be found by getting married, having children, running your own business, being a taxi driver . . . the list is almost endless. For me, having a ‘vocation’ has always meant suspecting that I might like being a priest, and be good at it. That’s all there is to it.. I didn’t need to hear a voice coming out of the clouds before I went ahead!
So Father Dermot advised me to cast my net wide, to visit lots of different religious orders and see what felt right, and to start me off he gave me a book which lists all the major orders of men in England. My eye fell on the Order’s I entry immediately, partly because of the name, and partly because it described the Dominicans as dedicated to the truth. As I have since discovered, this means both a determination to find the truth – about God, the world, and human life – and a willingness to proclaim it, even at the risk of unpopularity, or indifference, or, in some places still today, martyrdom.
I was interested in a few other orders at that stage, but having visited them all I knew the Dominican Order was the right one for me, because I felt immediately at home when I visited the priories in Edinburgh and in Oxford and was quickly drawn in to the arguments that went on around the dinner table, and even the breakfast table. Some of them are still going on now! I found that Dominicans, who live together in communities of between about six and (in Oxford) thirty, manage to combine a genuine and natural affection for one another, a contemplative life of prayer and study, and a remarkable tendency to be opinionated. It suited me perfectly, and still does.
As for the future, I expect to be ordained priest in the summer of 2001, and then when I have finished my degree I will probably be assigned to another of our priories, perhaps as a university chaplain or a parish priest. One of the differences between Friars and Monks is that we move around, so once every five years or so I will probably be moved on again, and find something new to do. But wherever I am, I will always be preaching the truth; one day, I’ll come back to Wendover and do it there.
Bro. Richard J Ounsworth OP
Cum permissu superiorum