As Vocations Sunday approaches (on 21 April, the 4th Sunday of Easter) this year, the Dominican student brothers in Blackfriars Oxford (Province of England) have shared the new Dominican Vocations card with a special Prayer for Dominican Vocations. Click on the link below for the text.

Of unrelated interest is the image on the card itself, which is of a statue of St Dominic carved by the Dominican tertiary, Eric Gill. The author and Oxford don, J. R. R. Tolkein was known to have served the private Mass of a Dominican friar at this altar in Blackfriars Oxford, and it is thought that this statue, with the star prominently carved on the brow of the saint, might have inspired Professor Tolkein's depiction of the Eldar (Star-Folk) in his books. Certainly, in one of his elven songs, the 'Lay of Nimrodel', there is mention of an "elven maid" with "a star [ ] bound upon her brow".

In 2011 the English Province also produced a video about the Dominican friars' vocation. The video was produced by a couple of young Catholic men, who were asked to interview various friars, asking them the kinds of questions they had as young Catholics about our Dominican religious life. Among the friars who are interviewed was fr Timothy Radcliffe OP.