Last week I His successor in the Dominic was born Ordained a priest, he was elected canon of the chapter The bishop of Osma, who was named Diego, a While traveling, Dominic became aware of two great challenges for Dominic This great saint reminds us<\/span> that a missionary fire must always Other First of all<\/span>, Dominic and the Friars Preachers presented themselves as In the second place, The Dominic, who wished to found a religious Order When Dominic died in 1221 in Bologna, the city Dear brothers and sisters, may Dominic <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I marveled at the Pope’s General Audience address on Saint Francis of Assisi last week. He’s given us more food to digest this week. Of course, I believe both of these addresses are the Pope’s corrective of the two great Orders of the Church. In many places both the Dominicans and the Franciscans have unhinged … Continue reading Saint Dominic helps us to discover the fruit of contemplation<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,24],"tags":[1723,1714],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25304"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25304\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25304"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25304"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25304"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
<\/font><\/p>\n![\"St](\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/St%20Dominic%20receiving%20the%20habit.jpg\")
\npresented the luminous figure of Francis of Assisi; today I would like to speak
\nto you of another saint who, in the same period, made an essential contribution
\nto the renewal of the Church of his time. It is St. Dominic, the founder of the
\nOrder of Preachers, known also as the Dominican Friars.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nleadership of the order, Blessed Giordano di Saxony, gives a complete portrait
\nof St. Dominic in the text of a famous prayer: “Inflamed by zeal for God
\nand supernatural ardor, by your limitless charity and the fervor of a vehement
\nspirit, you consecrated yourself wholly with the vow of perpetual poverty to apostolic
\nobservance and to evangelical preaching.” It is in fact this essential
\nfeature of Dominic’s witness that is underlined: He always spoke with God and
\nabout God. In the life of saints, love of the Lord and of neighbor, the seeking
\nof God’s glory and the salvation of souls always go together.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nin Spain, in Caleruega, around 1170. He belonged to a noble family of Old
\nCastille and, supported by an uncle priest, he was educated in a famous school
\nof Palencia. He was distinguished immediately for his interest in the study of
\nsacred Scripture and for his love of the poor, to the point of selling books,
\nwhich in his time constituted a good of great value, to help victims of famine
\nwith what he collected.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof the cathedral in his native diocese, Osma. Although this appointment could
\nrepresent for him some motive of prestige in the Church and in society, he did
\nnot interpret it as a personal privilege, or as the beginning of a brilliant ecclesiastical
\ncareer, but as a service to render with dedication and humility. Is not perhaps
\nthe temptation to a career, to power, a temptation to which not even those who
\nhave a role of leadership and governance in the Church are immune? I recalled
\nthis a few months ago, during the consecration of some bishops: “We do not
\nseek power, prestige or esteem for ourselves. […] We know how in civil
\nsociety and often also in the Church things suffer because many people on whom
\nresponsibility has been conferred work for themselves rather than for the
\ncommunity” (Homily, Cappella Papale per l’Ordinazione episcopale di cinque
\nEcc. mi Presuli, Sept. 12, 2009).<\/span><\/p>\n
\ntrue and zealous pastor, very soon noticed the spiritual quality of Dominic,
\nand wished to make use of his collaboration. Together they went to Northern
\nEurope to carry out diplomatic missions entrusted to them by the king of
\nCastille. <\/span><\/p>\n
\nthe Church of his time: the existence of people who were not yet evangelized,
\nin the northern limits of the European continent, and the religious scourge
\nthat weakened Christian life in southern France, where the action of some
\nheretical groups created disturbance and a falling away from the truth of the
\nfaith. Missionary work on behalf of those who do not know the light of the
\nGospel and the work of re-evangelization of the Christian community thus became
\nthe apostolic goals that Dominic intended to pursue. It was the Pope, to whom
\nBishop Diego and Dominic went to ask advice, who requested the latter to
\ndedicate himself to preaching to the Albigensians, a heretical group which held
\na dualistic concept of reality, that is, of two equally powerful creative
\nprinciples, Good and Evil. T<\/b><\/span>his group, consequently, had contempt for matter as
\ncoming from the principle of evil, even rejecting marriage, and reaching the
\npoint of denying the incarnation of Christ, the sacraments in which the Lord
\n“touches” us through matter, and the resurrection of bodies<\/b><\/span>. The
\nAlbigensians esteemed a poor and austere life — in this sense they were even
\nexemplary — and they criticized the wealth of the clergy of that time.<\/span><\/p>\n
\naccepted this mission enthusiastically, which he carried out precisely with the
\nexample of his poor and austere existence, with the preaching of the Gospel and
\nwith public debates. He dedicated the rest of his life to this mission of
\npreaching the Good News. His sons would fulfill St. Dominic’s other dreams: the
\nmission ad gentes, that is, to those who did not yet know Jesus, and the
\nmission to those who lived in the city, especially in the universities, where
\nnew intellectual tendencies were a challenge for the faith of the
\nwell-educated.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nburn in the heart of the Church, which drives incessantly to take the first
\nproclamation of the Gospel and, where necessary, to a new evangelization:
\nChrist is, in fact, the most precious good that men and women of all times and
\nall places have the right to know and to love<\/span>! And it is consoling to see how
\nalso in the Church of today<\/b> there are so many — pastors and lay faithful,
\nmembers of old religious orders and of new ecclesial movements — that with joy
\nspend their life for this supreme ideal: to proclaim and witness the Gospel!<\/span><\/p>\n
\nmen associated themselves to Dominic Guzmán, attracted by the same aspiration.
\nThus, gradually, from the first foundation of Tolosa, was born the Order of
\nPreachers. Dominic, in fact, in full obedience to the directives of the Popes
\nof his time, Innocent III and Honorius III, adopted the ancient Rule of St.
\nAugustine, adapting it to the needs of apostolic life, which led him and his
\ncompanions to preach, moving from one post to another, but returning, later, to
\ntheir own monasteries, places of study, prayer and community life. In a
\nparticular way, Dominic wished to highlight two values considered indispensable
\nfor the success of the evangelizing mission: community life in poverty and
\nstudy<\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nmendicants, that is, without vast properties of land to administer<\/i>. This
\nelement rendered them more available for study and itinerant preaching and
\nconstituted a concrete witness for the people<\/i>. The internal government of the
\nDominican monasteries and provinces was structured on the system of chapters,
\nwhich elected their own superiors, confirmed later by major superiors; hence,
\nan organization that stimulated fraternal life and the responsibility of all
\nthe members of the community<\/i>, exacting strong personal convictions. The choice
\nof this system stemmed precisely from the fact that the Dominicans, as preachers
\nof the truth of God, had to be consistent with what they proclaimed. Truth
\nstudied and shared in charity with brothers is the most profound foundation of
\njoy.<\/b> Blessed Giordano of Saxony said of St. Dominic: “He received every
\nman in the great bosom of charity and, because he loved everyone, everyone
\nloved him. He made a personal law for himself of being joyful with happy
\npersons and of weeping with those who wept”<\/span> (Libellus de principiis
\nOrdinis Praedicatorum autore Iordano de Saxonia, ed. H.C. Scheeben, [Monumenta
\nHistorica Sancti Patris Nostri Dominici, Romae, 1935]).<\/span><\/p>\n
\nwith a courageous gesture Dominic wished that his followers acquire a solid
\ntheological formation, and he did not hesitate to send them to the universities
\nof the time, even though not a few ecclesiastics regarded with diffidence these
\ncultural institutions. The Constitutions of the Order of Preachers give great
\nimportance to study as preparation for the apostolate. Dominic wanted his
\nfriars to dedicate themselves to study, sparing no effort, with diligence and
\ncompassion — to study founded on the soul of all theological learning, that
\nis, on sacred Scripture, and respectful of the questions posed by reason.<\/span><\/p>\n
\ndevelopment of culture imposes on those who carry out the ministry of the Word,
\nat various levels, to be well prepared. Hence I exhort all, pastors and laity,
\nto cultivate this “cultural dimension” of faith, so that the beauty
\nof the Christian truth can be better understood and faith can be truly nourished,
\nreinforced and also defended<\/b>. In this Year for Priests, I invite seminarians
\nand priests to appreciate the spiritual value of study. The quality of the
\npriestly ministry depends also on the generosity with which one applies oneself
\nto the study of revealed truths<\/b>.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nof Preachers-Theologians, reminds us that theology has a spiritual and pastoral
\ndimension, which enriches the spirit and life<\/span>. Priests, consecrated persons and
\nalso all the faithful can find a profound “interior joy” in
\ncontemplating the beauty of the truth that comes from God, truth that is always
\nup-to-date and always living<\/span>. Hence, the motto of the Friars Preachers —
\ncontemplata aliis tradere — helps us to discover a pastoral yearning in the
\ncontemplative study of such truth, by the need to communicate to others the
\nfruit of one’s contemplation.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nthat declared him its patron, his work had already had great success. The Order
\nof Preachers, with the support of the Holy See, had spread to many countries of
\nEurope to the benefit of the whole Church. Dominic was canonized in 1234, and
\nit is he himself, with his sanctity, who indicates to us two indispensable
\nmeans for apostolic action to be incisive. First of all, Marian devotion<\/span>, which
\nhe cultivated with tenderness and which he left as precious legacy to his
\nspiritual children, who in the history of the Church have had the great merit
\nof spreading the prayer of the holy rosary, so dear to the Christian people and
\nso rich in evangelical values, a true school of faith and piety. In the second
\nplace, Dominic, who took care of some women’s convents in France and in Rome,
\nbelieved profoundly in the value of intercessory prayer for the success of
\napostolic work<\/span>. Only in Paradise will we understand how much the prayer of the
\ncloistered effectively supports apostolic action! To each one of them I direct
\nmy grateful and affectionate thoughts.<\/span><\/p>\n
\nGuzmán’s life spur all of us to be fervent in prayer, courageous in living the
\nfaith, profoundly in love with Jesus Christ. Through his intercession, we ask
\nGod to enrich the Church always with genuine preachers of the Gospel.<\/span>