September 21, 2013
Jennifer Draeger ’10: ‘First and Foremost is Their Joy’
Jennifer Draeger ’10 has spent the last three years as director of youth ministry at the Church of the Little Flower in Berkeley Heights, N.J., an hour from her childhood home.
In the parish of 1,400 families, she led youth groups for high school and middle school students and prepared them for confirmation. She also traveled, explored, and “made many wonderful friendships.” But in April 2012, her heart told her it was finally time to discern a religious vocation more concretely, and she began to visit religious communities.
Draeger wasn’t surprised that she was drawn to the Nashville Dominicans, since the Dominican friars had inspired her so much at PC, where she majored in public and community service studies and minored in theology and Spanish.
“In religious life, you are drawn to the charism, the special gift of the Holy Spirit that God has given to that community for the building up of the body of Christ,” said Draeger. “As Dominicans, we are called to fall in love with Jesus Christ, the Truth, through contemplation, and to proclaim Him to the world by preaching and the witness of our lives.”
She joined the Nashville Dominicans in August.
“First and foremost is their joy,” Draeger said. “They just radiate the joy of the Lord and the joy that only comes through Christ. You can’t help but be drawn into it.”
