Novena to St Dominic - Day 7: St Dominic, a man of encouragement

On this 7^th day of our Novena in honour of St. Dominic, I would like to share just a few thoughts on St. Dominic as a man of Encouragement.

“When your words came, I devoured them, your Word was my delight and the joy of my heart” (Jr.15:16).

How aptly this Scripture text from the prophet Jeremiah can be applied to Our Holy Father Dominic – we can just see him in our mind’s eye, contemplating from the depth of his heart with great joy and exultation, this Scripture jewel,  overwhelmed as he always was, with an immense love of Holy Scripture.

‘Dominic showed himself a man of the Gospel in word and deed’, we are told by those who knew him.

With his deep spirit of unceasing prayer and with the Gospel as his weapon, he  was fired with zeal to be an apostle of encouragement among his Nuns, his Friars and all those among whom he laboured.

Among his numerous virtues spoken of again and again by those who knew him and by those who bore witness to his life under oath at his canonisation process, his virtue as a man of encouragement, in one form or another,  shines especially brightly – ‘Dominic was compassionate and consoled people in time of temptation, he was a source of strength (or we can say a source of encouragement) to all’.

 In this day and age the need for encouragement for every person at one time or another, is more needful than ever before, St. Paul himself reminds us in his letter to the Colossians (col.3:16)) – ‘Let the Word of Christ in all its richness dwell in you ……. encourage each other’.

By abiding in God’s encouraging Word speaking in our hearts  we will truly be aware of his Presence in our lives and the lives of others and thus amid misunderstandings, disappointments, hurts, and frustrations, as well as times of happiness, love and friendship, we will have many golden opportunities to be apostles of  this great virtue –

‘Do not be afraid’ God tells us ‘I have redeemed you, I have called you by name, you are mine’ – What greater encouragement could we ask for than these stupendous words from God, our Father, himself?

Let us ponder this great virtue in the company of Our Lady and St Dominic, Let us recall Mary’s words to the servants at the wedding of Cana – ‘do whatever  he tells you’ and that is exactly what St. Dominic did ALWAYS.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 6: Exploring an Icon of St Dominic

Every one of us is a living icon of God. He created us in his likeness and in his own image.

As you can see, this Icon of St. Dominic is not yet finished. At first I was disappointed not to have completed it in time for his Feast. Then it occurred to me that there was a message for me in this. Like this icon each one of us is not quite finished. We are still on a journey from darkness into the light. It is my hope that the image of St Dominic portrayed or perhaps more accurately, revealed to us through this icon may help us to enter the hidden, inner sanctuary of his heart and there discover more deeply the depths of our Dominican vocation---WHAT WE SHOULD LOOK LIKE.

The first portrait of St. Dominic was a word picture given to us by St. Cecilia, one of the first nuns of the Order, who knew him personally. For a long time historians did not give much credence to St. Cecilia’s description. Then, after World War 2, a scientific examination was done by anthropologists on St. Dominic’s remains and the results confirmed the authenticity of her description. Cecilia had said that he was of medium height- the measurements taken of his relics show that he was five feet six inches tall. She noted that, “His figure was supple; his face handsome and somewhat ruddy; his hair and beard had a reddish tinge. He was not a bit bald; his hair had a touch of grey.” At the bottom of the reliquary the examiners found some shreds of Dominic’s hair. It was exactly as Cecelia had said it was. “From his brow and his eyes” she continued, “there came a radiant splendor which won the respect and admiration of all; his eyes were large and beautiful. His hands were long and handsome and his voice was powerful and sonorous. He was always joyous and smiling except when moved with compassion at the affliction of his neighbours.” There are very few saints of so long ago whose personal appearance is so well documented.

The face is the mirror of the heart.  Those who are pure in heart, have faces that are transparent, unprotected. In them we see the nakedness and vulnerability of Christ. They have his freedom and spontaneity. Joseph Pieper has a lovely insight about this. He says “Only he who has a pure heart can laugh in a freedom that creates freedom in others.”

During the process of his canonization another very beautiful word picture of Dominic is given. It was said of him that ‘he spoke only with God or about God’. It is this particular depiction of Dominic that is the inspiration for my icon.

If you look at the icon you will notice that only the left hand of Dominic is visible. In his right hand he carries the Gospel of Matthew and the letters of St.  Paul. These were his most loved books.  We know from Bl. Jordan of Saxony, that they were his constant companions and he knew them by heart.  We do not see his hand.  It is not important that he carries the book in his hand but that he carries the Word in his heart. And it is from his encounter with the Word of God in his heart that he goes forth to bring that knowledge of God in Jesus to others.

His left hand is stretching up towards heaven. In this is revealed his deep closeness to God. “He spoke always with God”. “O Lord, have mercy on your people, what will become of sinners?” was his constant cry. His soul, writes Jordan, “was a sanctuary of compassion where he offers God all human misery.” Christ is the answer to the brokenness in each of our lives. Dominic’s whole life and mission was given over to preaching THIS truth.

The centrality of Christ our Saviour, in his saving mystery made sacramentally present in the Church, lies at the heart of Dominic’s spirituality.

It is important to note that while stretching up to God, Dominic’s left hand is also breaking through the frame of the picture. I was not happy with this at first and kept attempting to change it- to keep his hand within the contours of the outline. But it just wouldn’t work. Finally it dawned on me. I wasn’t meant to change Dominic but rather to hear what he was saying to me through what I considered to be a flaw in my icon writing. And there it was. Because Dominic’s hand is stretched out towards God it is automatically also stretching out beyond the boundaries of his comfort zone to reach out to the peoples on the margins, just as Jesus did. This is the change contemplation works in us. We become the icon of Jesus, acting as Jesus did or allowing him to live through us. Last year Pope Francis wrote a letter to the priests and consecrated persons and invited them not to sit comfortably in their houses and churches but to go out to the fringes of society, to the uncomfortable places and bring the evangelical message to the broken and distant. Do we do that? Dominic did. He left his cloister in Osma, Spain when he discovered that the people of southern France did not know the truth about Christ. And when he heard about the pagan people of Prussia, Lithuania and Esthonia, the Baltic countries, he had a huge desire to bring them the Good News, the Word of Truth. Brothers called it “a dream of St. Dominic.” He never in fact got that far in person but his desire and prayer went beyond all boundaries, to even the most distant lands. I can say that my own vocation speaks to the reality of this holy dream of Dominic. I am one of those Baltic peoples that he so longed to bring Jesus to.

Now we come to Dominic’s halo. His halo like his prayer and zeal for souls is as large as his heart. It too goes beyond the frame designed to contain it and encourages us to dream our dreams, big dreams.

But that is not all, Dominic has also feet, beautiful feet! Feet with a fire in them! On Wednesday as we celebrate his Feast, we will hear in the first reading at Mass. “how beautiful are the feet of those who bring the Good News of Salvation”

Do we want to follow in his footsteps.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 5: St Dominic and Body Language

My reflection is on the significance and importance of bodily posture in St Dominic’s prayer. As we know from the ‘Nine Ways of Prayer,’ St Dominic used his whole body when he prayed: bowing, prostration, reaching up to heaven.

It struck me as odd that in our time, when there is so great an awareness of the importance of body language in interpersonal communication and of how much of what is communicated is through bodily posture etc., that there should be such a widespread dismissal of any significance of our bodily posture when we pray. It is said that bodily posture doesn’t matter because God looks at the heart.

I think that this ignoring of bodily posture gives rise to a number of problems, largely because it fails to consider the impact that my body language has on my own perception of, and response to, the person that I am talking or listening to. To give an example, if at a lecture I am slouched and looking off out the window my body is telling my mind not to pay attention. If, on the other hand, I sit up straight, keep eye contact and watch expectantly, my body is telling my mind to pay attention.

Our bodily prayer postures act in a similar way: blessing ourselves as we enter a Church reminds us that we are entering a holy place and is also a sort of trigger (as is kneeling) that we are about to pray (like the way insomniacs are advised to develop a ‘pre-bed’ physical routine that will trigger the mind to prepare to sleep). Similarly, genuflecting before the tabernacle is the bodily expression that Jesus (God) is truly present here. Kneeling and prostration likewise remind us of God’s greatness and our littleness.

This means that ignoring or removing bodily posture from our prayer-life actually makes it harder for us to pray and also makes it harder for us to relate to God as a real person, since by removing body language from our communication with him we are no longer communicating as we would with a real person but only with a thought in our head.

May we continue to follow St Dominic’s example and pray with our whole selves (body & mind).

Novena to St Dominic - Day 3: Dominic a man of prayer

As we continue the novena to our Father St Dominic, I’d like to read an extract from the book “15 Days of Prayer with Saint Dominic” by Alain Quilici O.P.

All of those who knew Dominic, either from near or far, as close friends of just acquaintances, attested to the intensity of his prayers. Dominic prayed like he breathed. He was not one of those who had time to write books, not even books on prayer, he just prayed. He spent the majority of his time in prayer. He entered into a state of prayer as naturally and rapidly as others fell asleep. To spontaneously fall asleep is a childhood grace. Dominic was a child according to the gospel, a child who dove into prayer whenever he had a moment, most especially during the night. For him, the night was made for prayer.

Even when he was just a young religious, he already appeared to be a man specially gifted for prayer:

Night and day, like the olive tree that produces fruit or the cypress that reaches to the heavens, he used the floor of the church, devoting his time to contemplation, never appearing to leave the monastery. God had given him the special grace of prayer for sinners, the poor, the afflicted: he carried their maladies in the intimate sanctuary of his compassion; and the tears that came boiling from his eyes manifested the ardour of the feelings that burned within him. It was his habit to spend his nights in prayer. With the door closed, he prayed to his Father. During and at the end of his prayers, he uttered moans which came from his heart. He couldn’t hold back, and these cries, coming spontaneously, could clearly be heard up above in heaven (Libellus, 12).

Dominic, like a beacon of light that burns in the night, realized the Lord’s precept: “Be alert at all times, praying …” (Lk 21:36).

Novena to St Dominic - Day 9

St Dominic's Charity and Humility

On this the final day of our Novena in honour of St. Dominic and as we are about to celebrate first Vespers of this special solemnity, I would like to focus this reflection on St Dominic as a man of prayer , with particular emphases on his humility and charity.

Jordan of Saxony tells us in the Libellus that the conferences of Cassian figured amongst Dominic’s favourite reading. Cassian tells us that humility, simplicity and charity are the foundations of all prayer. St. Dominic practised all these to a heroic degree.

Take for example humility: when the Bishop of Osma made him a canon regular in his church, we are told that “he was the lowliest of them all in his humility of heart, but he was their leader in holiness.” ( Libellus No. 12) His first and second Ways of Prayer, are based on humility of heart , as in his first Way of Prayer he “ bowed as low as possible before the altar, as though Christ, whom the altar represents  were present there really and personally” and in the second Way of Prayer,     “ throwing himself flat on the ground, face down, where he was moved to sorrow in his heart and reproved himself and on occasion came out so loud that that phrase of the Gospel, ‘ O God, be merciful to me a sinner’,  was heard to come from him”. At his final Chapter in Bologna, he did not want to be re-elected as Master of the Order but to be given the freedom to be an ordinary friar and to go and preach to the pagans in the East. He was neither ambitious nor power hungry but humble, living a simple life as he spent himself entirely in preaching for the salvation of everyone, “haunting the church by day and by night, devoting himself ceaselessly to prayer”.( Libellus 12)

Dominic’s deepest source of inspiration was his profound love of Jesus Christ, a love which overflowed in his charity for others. “He certainly did not lack the greatest form of charity that a person can have, the charity to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. The story goes that when he was urging one of the unbelievers, with loving encouragement, to return to the true faith, the man explained that his association with the unbelievers was prompted by his worldly needs, because the heretics gave him the necessary funds, which he could not obtain in any other way. Dominic was so moved by sympathy that he decided immediately to sell himself and relieve the poverty of this endangered soul with the price of himself. And he really would have done it had not the Lord made other arrangements for meeting the man’s needs.” ( Libellus 35)

Dominic succeeded in reconciling his intense practice of prayer with the new requirements of the apostolate: the preaching mission entrusted to him by the Pope. As Sr. Barbara Beaumont OP states in her book: Keeping Faith with the Preachers, - “Dominic made real the originality of the Order he founded, the apostolic ideal rooted in contemplative prayer. The means to this end were to ensure that prayer in Dominican life must serve as a source for:

1.     Knowledge of self such as one is, and knowledge and love of others as they are.

2.     Conversion to Christ and a personal relationship with him.

3.     Joy in community and labour in the Church at the service of humankind.

Dominican spirituality is simply, in the manner of St. Dominic, to allow oneself to be seized by the mercy of God revealed in the Incarnation and in the Scriptures, to gaze on God with the eyes of the heart, and to gaze equally on people in order that they may be saved.

Through the intercession of St. Dominic and all our Dominican Saints may all of us be given these special graces.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 8

St Dominic, The Transfiguration, & Truth

On this feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord: a feast in which we celebrate the Light that Jesus is;  the Light He radiates on all who believe Him; the Light that He wants to shine on all humanity, even on those who do not yet know Him – it seems appropriate to consider St Dominic and one of the mottoes of the Order – possibly a lesser known one – that is Veritas, or Truth.

The importance of such a motto in the early days of the foundation of the Order of Preachers is unquestionable.  Heresies which denied the goodness of the physical world and the intrinsic goodness and worth of the human person were increasingly popular, and are popular even now.  St Dominic – in seeking to combat these, together with his brethren and the support of the prayers of the nuns whom he had associated with their mission – was seeking to re-present the truth which Christ Himself had taught so long ago; the truth He had entrusted to the Church for all time.  It could be observed that in fact what St Dominic founded the Order for, was ‘nothing new.’  Yet, he must have had an extra-ordinary, single-minded faith and trust in God, to be able to establish his Order at the time he did; and to disperse the brethren in order to preach the Gospel, so soon after having gathered them together.

Today, when we celebrate the mystery of the Transfiguration of the Lord, it is possible to see why St Dominic was so attracted to Jesus.  Dominic, like us, was a pilgrim throughout his life; constantly and tirelessly intent on living according to the truth, and he found it in Jesus, who Himself confessed that He is the Truth … and the Way … and the Life.  Our own searching: our journey towards discovering the meaning and value of our lives and our purpose in life, can only be realised if it is a search for truth: a truth that is unchanging and is not diluted by momentary fashions and opinions.

The feast of the Lord’s Transfiguration is a feast of Light and Life and the wonder that the truth we long for is not an unattainable dream or ideology – but is in fact a person – a Person who is both God and Man: a Person who is Love.  It seems, then, that St Dominic’s vision for the order he established is one that is as timeless, as eternal one might say, as the Person on Whom he constantly fixed his gaze; and with Whom he ceaselessly conversed. 

The Light and the Life: the Love and the Truth that Jesus is, is not mysterious, such that we cannot know it – but it is something which He wants to reveal to all the world, as He revealed Himself to Peter and James and John on the holy mountain.  St Dominic was on fire with the desire to share what he had come to know; and he sets the example for us who follow in his footsteps, to have that same passion for the truth, for the Lord, so that all may know the salvation which was won for us upon the Cross. 

Pope Benedict once observed that: “In ancient times the really terrible thing about prisons was that they cut people off from the light of day and plunged them into darkness.  So, at a deeper level, the real alienation, unfreedom, and imprisonment of man consists in his want of truth.  If he does not know truth, if he does not know who he is, why he is there, and what the reality of this world consists in, he is only stumbling around in the dark.”  Today’s feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord is truly a Dominican feast – it is a celebration of the Light that has been revealed in the world as the Truth, and the Truth is Christ.  So we are set a tremendous challenge – by the Lord and by St Dominic – ever to strive to be heralds and lights of that Truth.  To quote again Pope Benedict:  “The church’s real contribution to liberation, which she can never postpone and which is most urgent today, is to proclaim truth in the world, to affirm that God is, that God knows us, and that God is as Jesus Christ has revealed Him, and that, in Jesus Christ, He has given us the path of life.”

May St Dominic continue to intercede for us that we may be faithful to the wondrous gift we have received, and that we may not keep it to ourselves but proclaim the Truth in all that we do and say and pray.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 7

St Dominic and Prayer

As we continue our Novena to St Dominic, I would like to reflect on St. Dominic’s  Prayer.

So deeply was Dominic moved by the LOVE of Jesus Christ Crucified that he strove in all things to imitate Christ, passing the day in apostolic work and the night in prayer.

Prayer was the breath of St Dominic’s Life and the light on his pilgrim path. He prayed always and He won more souls by his prayer than by preaching or miracles.

Fervent and humble prayer was the sling and stone with which he overthrew the Goliath of Heresy.

St Dominic’s methods of prayer known as “The Nine Ways of Prayer” were various. He made abundant use of gestures, genuflections, prostrations and other postures where his soul in prayer used the different parts (members) of his body to foster its own loving ascent to God.

In his Seventh posture of prayer, St Dominic was often found standing erect stretching his whole body upwards with his hands joined and raised towards heaven, often he would open his hands as though in receipt of something from heaven.  And it is believed that at such times he received an increase of Grace, obtaining from God the gifts of the Holy Spirit for himself and his brethren.

In all labours and disquiets, in hunger, thirst, fatigue, his heart turned always to God.

The Friars would hear him praying aloud reciting Psalm 27: V1-2

“HEAR O GOD, THE VOICE OF MY PLEADING AS I CALL FOR HELP

AS I LEFT UP MY HANDS IN PRAYER TO YOUR HOLY PLACE”

By word and example he taught the brethren always to pray like this, using verses from the psalms. (For example the PS 133 VERSE 1-2 ,the  PS 140 VERSE 1-2)

His Prayer drew him upwards to God.   He reached out to the Gift of God towards the promise of his Kingdom.

In today’s Gospel passage St Matthew tells us to be ready to give up all for the sake of the buried treasure or the priceless pearl.  The Gift of knowing God and his Son Jesus is the treasure that outshines all other things, for through God we enter the kingdom of heaven. Even now we participate in the kingdom even though life is full of good and bad.  We can trust that in the end good will prevail and evil will perish. The treasure we will find is eternal life with God.

More than anything the Nine Ways of Prayer of St Dominic points us to the fact that the pursuit of worldly things is futile and that the primary importance for Dominicans and all humankind is to pray for the Grace of Christ that is sufficient for each of us. This is the pearl which is worth everything, the hidden treasure that we should REJOICE over. This Grace will guide our prayer towards things that really matter, towards love of God and acceptance of his will.

And we should never cease making intercession with the GOD OF OUR SALVATION for the precious souls He gives to us, so that all men and women might be saved. This is great service for the kingdom of God.

Father God, Let us pray that St Dominic be the light of Christ to us all and like St Dominic,  that we can strive as God’s COWORKERS in the Reign of his Kingdom. Amen

Novena to St Dominic - Day 6

St Dominic and the Rosary

[Extract from the book: ‘The Life of St Dominic’ by Bede Jarrett OP]

The crucifix, Mass, the Blessed Sacrament, the gospels and epistles, anything that conjured up to him most vividly the personality of our Lord, were to [St Dominic] the easiest means for helping him to pray.

It was for this reason that the devotion of the rosary found in him its keenest apostle. His own way of prayer, consisting … of vocal expression of love and adoration, was intermingled with silences; it passed from speech to contemplation as it fixed itself on to the character of our Lord. All these elements are united in the rosary. It was contemplative and vocal. It comprised the saying of Our Fathers and Hail Marys which were checked and noted by a string of beads, a contrivance, of course, older even than Christianity, and already widespread over Europe before his time. St Dominic did not invent these things, though it would seem that he popularised them. To him, however, a papal tradition points as the originator of the division into decades or groups of ten, separated by larger beads called ‘Paternosters.’ Under the influence of the Order these chaplets, at this date, spread widely over Christendom, and are to be found carven on tombs, and are from St Dominic’s time increasingly alluded to in devotional literature.

But the mere recitation of prayers would be of no use unless these could be accompanied by a consciousness of God’s presence and of that converse with him that alone gives them a value and makes them efficacious. Hence it was necessary to add the idea of some sort of mystery, some act or scene of our Lord’s life, and present it vividly to the imagination so as ultimately to stir the heart to love and worship. … These, therefore, were scenes carefully chosen out of our Lord’s life as pictured in the Gospels or as revealed in tradition, while the lips repeated the most familiar of all prayers, the oldest and simplest of Christian salutations, the mind was supposed thereby to become better able to hold on to the truth of the scene and gather its full significance. The recitation became almost a mechanical aid to reflection, and the thoughts were thereby freer to concentrate, to abstract themselves, to look before and after. The purpose of the rosary was, therefore, to produce the effect that St Dominic had in view in all his prayers, an intense application of the human soul to the divine personality of Christ.

Finally, it is to be noted that the rosary allows for that pause or silence which Dominic considered essential to prayer. … The action of prayer in his view should never be considered as though it were limited to the human agent, as though man alone was the active partner in it. It must include the silent consciousness of the divine Presence. … For this reason, therefore, Dominic added to this simplest of prayers the practice of quiet and silence.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 5

St Dominic's passion for the salvation of All

[Extract from a letter by Damien Byrne OP (Master of the Order 1983-92)]

Dominic’s burning passion for the salvation of all left a powerful impression on those who were his closest associates. The young William of Montferrat tells us that ‘Dominic was filled with a greater zeal for the salvation of all than anyone else I have ever met.’ ‘So we both agreed and even promised each other that when Brother Dominic had organised his Order and I had studied theology for two years, we would go away together and do all that we could to convert the pagans, in Prussia and in other lands of the North.’

Statements such as these are to be found in many of the depositions made at the process of canonization. Jordan of Saxony echoes them in the ‘Libellus’ when he says:

With all his energy and with passionate zeal, [Dominic] set himself to win all the souls he could for Christ. His heart was full of an extraordinary, almost incredible yearning for the salvation of everyone.

Jordan also tells us:

He had a special prayer that God would grant him true charity, which would be effective in caring for and winning the salvation of all; he thought he would only really be a member of Christ’s Body when he would spend himself utterly with all his strength in the winning of souls.

Dominic never achieved his ambition to be a missionary to the non-Christian world but he directed the Order to this path. At the Chapter of 1221 it was decided to send bands of Dominicans to three different territories beyond the frontiers of Christendom. Those who were sent with Paul of Hungary asked to go to the Cumans, thus fulfilling Dominic’s ambition. It was the Chapter that made these decisions but the inspiration came from Dominic.

And so, we pray that Our Father Dominic will obtain for us an increase in that true charity and zeal for souls which he had. 

Novena to St Dominic - Day 4

St Dominic and St Francis

[Extract from the book, “Saint Dominic: the grace of the Word” by Guy Bedouelle O.P.]

At almost the same time that Dominic, in the Church of Our Lady of Prouille at the foot of the Pyrenees, laid the foundations of his Order, Francis was preparing his at the Church of Our Lady of the Angels, at the foot of the Apennines. An ancient sanctuary of the Blessed Virgin Mother of God was for each the humble and sweet cornerstone of their edifice. Dominic cherished Our Lady of Prouille above all other places; Francis reserved for the small plot of land sheltering Our Lady of the Angels a special affection, within the immensity of a heart detached from all visible things. Each began his public life with a pilgrimage to Rome; each returned there to beg the sovereign pontiff’s approbation for his Order. Innocent III at first rebuffed them both, and the same vision persuaded him to grant them both a verbal and provisional approbation. Dominic, like Francis, included within the austere flexibility of his Rule men and women religious and laymen, making of three Orders a single power to fight for Jesus Christ with all the weapons of nature and grace; only Dominic began with women, Francis with men. The same sovereign Pontiff, Honorius III, confirmed their institutions by apostolic bulls; Gregory IX canonized them both. Finally, the two greatest doctors of all centuries have done honour to their memories, St. Thomas for St. Dominic, St. Bonaventure for St. Francis.

Yet these two men, whose destinies created such admirable harmonies for both worlds, heaven and earth, never knew each other. Both were in Rome during the Lent when the Fourth Lateran Council met, yet it seems that neither had ever so much as heard the other’s name. One night Dominic, at prayer according to his custom, beheld Jesus Christ looking upon the world in wrath and his Mother presenting two men to him to appease him. He recognised himself as one of them but did not know who the other was. Fixing his gaze on him he tried to memorize his features. The next day in some church – no one knows which – he saw, clothed in the habit of a mendicant, the figure revealed to him the night before. Running up to this poor man he embraced him with holy affection and said: “You are my companion, you will go with me, let us stay together and nothing shall be able to prevail against us.” The embrace of Francis and Dominic has often been presented and stylized to illustrate the theme of ‘holy friendship.’

Novena to St Dominic - Day 3

St Dominic & Moses

In his Libellus, Blessed Jordan tells us that “everywhere Dominic showed himself to be a man of the Gospel in word and in deed” – a man who brought good news and indeed like Christ, his Divine Exemplar, embodied in his own person the good news of the Gospel.

No doubt Dominic’s apostolic zeal sprang from his deep interior relationship with God - we are told that he spent long hours, often the entire night, in prayer and always spoke only “to God or of God”. While reflecting on this aspect of Dominic’s life, the first reading at this morning’s Mass caught my attention.  There, we see Moses being enveloped in the cloud, symbol of God’s mysterious Presence and speaking to Him “face to face as a man speaks to his friend.” But this intimate relationship was not solely for the benefit of Moses himself – rather God wanted to use Moses for the work of leading his people from slavery to freedom. God reveals Himself as a “God of tenderness and compassion, slow to anger, rich in kindness and faithfulness, forgiving faults, yet letting nothing go unchecked.”  So Moses has the courage to invite God to accompany them on their journey, to forgive them their faults and sins and adopt them as His own heritage although he admits that “they are a headstrong people.”

When we examine Blessed Jordan’s description of Dominic’s character we find similar traits as those of Moses which I have just mentioned.  As a young man he developed a passionate appetite for God’s word- we get the picture of him imbibing Sacred Scripture with eager longing and storing it in the deepest recesses of his mind but like Moses this pursuit of wisdom and intimate relationship with God was never a purely private affair or solely for his own personal advantage but his love of piety fertilised what he learned, so that it brought forth fruit in the form of saving works – we know that he communicated the tenderness and compassion of God, which he imbibed in prayer, to all and sundry alike.  We are told that in loving all he was beloved by all.

Dominic’s memory was a kind of “barn” for God to fill while his external behaviour and actions publicly broadcast the treasure that lay hidden in his holy breast.  He warmly accepted the Lord’s commandments and his will welcomed the voice of his Lover with loyalty and pleasure – in his contemplation he was able to penetrate the mystery and then communicate it to others through his preaching and his actions.

Dominic’s promise of being more helpful after his death than during his life ought to fill us with confidence - we can rely on his intercession to obtain for us the grace of always following in his footsteps – so that, through our life of prayer and sacrifice we may allow the seed which is the Word of God to grow in our heart by the power of the Holy Spirit and in so receiving it may we be interiorly renewed and more closely conformed to Christ so that we can truly be nuns of the Order of Preachers.

Novena to St Dominic - Day 2

St Dominic - God's obedient Son

Raymond of Capua, Catherine’s confessor and friend, records an extraordinary vision in which Catherin sees the Father begetting the Son. Then the Father speaks of Dominic:

Dearest daughter, I am the Father of these two sons; of the One by natural generation; of the other, by loving and affectionate adoption … This Son who is mine by natural and eternal generation, was most perfectly obedient to me  in all things, even unto death, in the human nature which he assumed. So too, Dominic, this son of mine by adoption, shaped every act he did, from his infancy till the last day of his life, by obedience to my commandments. Never once did he disobey a command of mine … and he preached not only in his own person, but through others also; not only in his own lifetime, but through those who followed him. Through these followers the voice of Dominic’s preaching is heard today, and will continue to be heard. For just as my Son by nature sent his disciples to preach, so did Dominic, my adopted son, send out his friars … just as my Son by nature is my very Word, so this adopted son is the herald and bearer of my Word. And so my special gift to him and his friars is understanding of the words I have spoken, and the grace of never swerving from them.

Novena to St Dominic 2015 - Day 8

Since today is the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord, it seems appropriate to focus in this reflection on the importance that the Word of God has in St Dominic’s life and preaching. It can be said that St Dominic truly lived and was granted the grace asked for in today’s opening prayer: “grant, we pray, to you servants, that, listening to the voice of your beloved Son, we may merit to become coheirs with Him.” 

We know that he always carried with him on his journeys one of the Gospels and the letters of St Paul and it is said that he knew them by heart. The study of Scripture is, of course, an important part of the life of the Order so that the “seeds of the Word of God” may be given to others through preaching. But, of even more significance is the example Dominic left us of his use of Scripture in his prayer. In the little booklet “The Nine Ways of Prayer of St Dominic,” which dates from the 13^th century, a number of those Ways of Prayer involve Scripture. 

Most of the Ways of Prayer (e.g. the Second, Third, Fourth, Sixth and Seventh Ways) included the frequent repetition of short phrases from Scripture (e.g. Lk 18:13 “God be merciful to me a sinner”, Mt 8:2, the Psalms etc).

In the Fifth Way of Prayer “he held himself, standing with great respect and devotion, as if he were reading in the presence of God. Deep in prayer, he seemed to meditate on the words of God, and as it were to repeat them over and over to himself with delight.” A practice that he would also adopt while on his journeys.

The Eight Way of Prayer, is much like what we now speak of as Lectio Divina: Dominic “in the spirit of devotion roused in him by the divine words chanted in choir or in the refectory, would go speedily to some solitary place, in his cell or elsewhere, to read and pray by himself and in the presence of God. … then he felt his soul gently moved, as if he heard the Lord speaking.” This image of Dominic prayerfully contemplating the Gospels is particularly familiar thanks to Fra Angelico’s presentation of the Crowning with Thorns. 

The Ninth Way of Prayer, involved this type of prayerful mediation on the Word of God, as he walked on his journeys, indicating how well he knew the Scriptures.

“In the opinion of the Brethren, it was by praying thus that the Saint attained that fullness of knowledge of the Holy Scripture, penetrated into the very marrow of the sacred words, acquired the holy daring of his ardent preaching, and lived in that intimate familiarity with the Holy Spirit from which he drew the knowledge of hidden things.”

May our holy Father Dominic intercede for us, that we may have the same ardent love for the Word of God and may imitate him and our Lady in treasuring the Word of God and pondering it in our hearts (Lk 2:19). 

Novena to St Dominic 2015 - Day 7

Pope Francis has announced that the coming year-2016 will be a year dedicated to the Mercy of God for the whole Church, and by a happy coincidance our Order is celebrating the 800th Jubilee of its foundation.

 Reading through the Libellus and other documents of these early days I find that one of the most frequently mentioned characteristics of St. Dominic is his compassion, again and again we read of his long night vigils as he struggles with God to have Mercy on all His children, especially his most wayward ones.   Mercy Mercy, he cried, Lord have mercy on your children. What will become of sinners ?

Dominic could resonate with the beautiful lines from the poet on mercy and this was surely his way of thinking and his way of seeing life.

               "The quality of mercy is not strained----

it droppeth like the gentle dew from heaven

Upon the place beneath:  it is twice blest;-------

it blesseth him that gives and him that takes"

                                                                                                                        Shakespeare

St Lukes' Gospel on the Proddigal Son would have been especially dear to Dominic. It is said that he pondered with Mary the Word of God and St Paul's letters that he always carried with him, knowing them almost by heart.    We can see him pleading with and sharing the full depth of this story with the man in the inn as they talked and argued all night  long, and also with the sinners who were drawn to him, as they sensed that here was a man who would listen to their story and understand their problems, and sinfullness.---I will arise and go to mt Father---I have sinned and gone astray.  He would encourage these poor  children even the heretics, telling them of God's boundless love and mercy for them, and the welcome they would find in Jesus just as the prodigal son experienced it.

He would remind them too of the last Supper, the moment when John rested his head on the breast of Jesus in complete trust, sure of Jesus' love for him and his acceptance of this "son of thunder."   

 Where did St. Dominic our Father find the strength to sustain those long nights of intercession  and days of walking, teaching and arguing while at the same time bringing to birth his young Order of Friars Preachers?  He would tell them of God's constaint pursuit of them  each one individually and personally.

                        "All which I took from thee I did but take,-----not for thy harm's sake

                 but just that thou migh'st seek it in my arms.----all which thy child's mistake

Fancies as lost, I have stored for thee at home;   Rise clasp my hand an come.

                                                                                                                              the hound of heaven

 It was Our Lady, Queen of Heaven herself who walked with Dominic along the dusty roads and came with him into the inns, wherever a wayward son and daughter could be found.

 Maybe his prayer went like this - universal and personal as always

          Holy Mary Mother of God pray for us sinners,   Hail holy Queen  mother of Mercy,----turn then most gracious advocate thine eyes of mercy towards us/

 Our Father Dominic has not changed and he accompanies his children as they travel along the dusty roads of life sometimes getting muddied and messed up, but always with our Father and Mary our Mother - sure that after this our exile he will be there waiting to show us the blessed fruit of Mary's womb---Jesus         Dominic we thank you.

Novena to St Dominic 2015 - Day 4

St Dominic and the Rosary

Today we reflect on our Dominican tradition of devotion to the Holy Rosary and we quote from a letter (September 1985) by Fr Damian Byrne OP when he was Master of the Order.

The Dominican legend of the Rosary - "The barren land"

The order was born into a barren land: dichotomized humanity, with flesh warring against the spirit, with woman downgraded and life itself despised, was unable to accept the reality of the Word made flesh, dwelling in the midst of us. There was only one answer, and it was summed up in the simple words: "Hail... the Lord is with you... you will conceive in your womb, and bear a son..." (Luke 1: 28-31).

Whatever critical historians may have to say about the Legend of the Rosary, it bears witness to the charismatic gift entrusted by the Church to the Order of Preachers, a gift which we must exercise by reason of profession, by our legislation and by the constant exhortation of the See of Rome.

The Legend, as such, is worth recalling in these days of renewed insistence on our preaching ministry: After much fruitless labour, tradition has it that the Mother of God appeared to Dominic in the forest of Bouconne near Toulouse: "Wonder not that until now you have had such little fruit from your labours. You have spent them on a barren soil, not yet watered with the dew of divine grace. When God willed to renew the face of the earth he began by sending down the fertilizing dew of the Angelic Salutation. Preach my Rosary composed of one hundred and fifty Aves, and you will obtain an abundant harvest."

True devotion to Mary

It places Mary in her true ecclesial context - waiting herself in the barren land with the broken, the wounded and the little people of God. The heavenly Ave comes first on her, for in truth the Hail Mary is not so much an ascending prayer as a downward divine blessing poured out on all flesh. Mary stands in the desert on behalf of all humanity, so that it may blossom once more like the rose. The word addressed to Mary is addressed to all: "Rejoice, the Lord is with you." Here, we all draw waters from the springs of salvation, as the fertilizing rain of the Ave renews our land.

A school of prayer

There is a healthy plurality about the Prayer of the Rosary, for its long and varied history has produced many approaches: it has its rich Marian tradition, as witnessed at thousands of Marian shrines, in processions and in rituals where Mary is crowned as Queen. It has too, its Christological orientation as a "compendium of the Scriptures;" it is a powerful vocal prayer and it is a many levelled way of contemplative prayer. It can be prayed in a group or alone. In a word, the Rosary is a School of prayer, providing for body, soul and spirit.

A method of preaching

St. Dominic is above all the "Man of the Book." Art may show him without the beads, but never without the Scriptures. The well known fresco of "Christ mocked" in San Marco is a classic illustration. It contains the main elements of Rosary preaching:

1.The Central theme of the Lordship of Jesus, the subject of our contemplation and of our preaching. This is the suffering, yet triumphant Jesus of "now", with power still going out from his glorious wounds to heal his people.

2. Mary, the first and supreme contemplative who is already exquisitely occupied in pondering these things in her heart and at the same time inviting Dominic to keep her company.

3. St. Dominic, standing for ourselves, pondering the word in the Scriptures and preparing to preach it to others. Fra Angelico portrays him exactly as Our Lady requested five hundred years later at Fatima when she said: "Keep me company meditating on these mysteries of the Rosary."

An instrument of healing

Early preachers of the Rosary were concerned not merely with preaching a devotional

exercise. They were mindful of the Acts of the Apostles: "Grant to your servants to speak your word with boldness, while you stretch out your hand to heal and signs and wonders are performed through the name of your holy servant Jesus." (Acts 4: 29, 30). Among the classic texts of their preaching was the story of the woman with the issue of blood. She touched the Lord and experienced power go out from him. Healing was a very real part of the Rosary apostolate of former times. The Preacher would hold up the beads, and invite his hearers to touch the Lord in faith, as they reverently called on the name of Jesus in each Ave. "The beads", they would say, "are like the tassel of his robe. Reach out and clutch them in faith and you will be made well."

The Spanish apostle of New Granada, St. Louis Bertrand, gives a graphic account of the miracles performed through his own use of the beads which he was accustomed to place around the neck of the sick person. After his return to Valencia he gave a Rosary to a friend and told him to preserve it with reverence, "because in the Indies, this Rosary cured the sick, converted sinners, and I think, also raised the dead to life."

In these days of the new flourishing of the ministry of healing, it would be remiss of us Dominicans to fail in the healing dimension of the Rosary which is an integral part of our tradition.

It may be timely to recall a remarkable letter addressed to a former Master of the Order by Pope Pius XI. On 7th March, 1934, he wrote: "It may justly be said that the Rosary of Mary is, as it were, the principle and foundation on which the very Order of St. Dominic rests for the perfecting of the lives of its members, and obtaining the salvation of others."

Novena to St Dominic 2015 - Day 3

In the Fundamental Constitution of the Order we find the phase “following in the footsteps of the Saviour, speaking among themselves or their neighbours, either with God or about God.”  In the Process of Canonisation the Brethren indicated that this was wholly characteristic of Dominic their founder – frequently repeating that he “only spoke to God or about God.”

Yet this formula is not a creation of Dominic – he borrowed it from the founder of the Order of Grandmont, St Stephen of Thiers: The virtuous man should always speak of God or with God; for in his prayer he speaks with God and with his neighbour of God”

This sentence makes clear how the synthesis of the two aspects of Dominican life operate together, and transcend all dualism.  Our life will have all the more unity, when our activity is rooted and flows from our union with God.

St Dominic was a person who was undivided in himself, because he was open to all.  He was open to all because the one love that is the source of all - the form of all and the end of all - is one in him and in all.  He was capable of experiencing the truth that we are completely rooted and grounded in God’s love.

The following quotation from Love and Living by Thomas Merton is relevant here: “Christianity is a religion of the Word.  The Word is Love, but we sometimes forget that the Word emerges first of all from silence.  When there is no silence, then the one Word which God speaks, is not truly heard as Love. Then only ‘words’ are heard. ‘Words’ are not Love, for they are many and Love is One.  The one Word which God speaks is Himself.”

This silence of St Dominic which he proposes that we should imitate, is like that of the Virgin Mary: silence of the heart allows us to unceasingly hold in our minds and in our hearts the mystery of salvation.

Novena to St Dominic 2015 - Day 2

On this second day of our Novena in honour of St. Dominic, I cannot help calling to mind one of the great outstanding qualities of St. Dominic, namely, that of his zeal.  The dictionary describes it as ’an  intense enthusiasm for a cause’, and those belonging to the family of St. Dominic are only too well  aware how well this description fits his intense enthusiasm for the salvation of souls.

So much so that he spent his nights and much of his day in prayer, pleading for their salvation, even to the point of offering himself to be cut in pieces to be placed at the gates of hell to save poor sinners.  This reminds us of the words of Jesus in St. John’s Gospel (Ch.2) ‘Zeal for your house devours me’.

Oh, how zealously St. Dominic laboured to bring Christ’s mercy and healing to the people of his time – surely in our day he longs even more  to reach out to our needy sisters and brothers, which he does, through the ministry of his many sons and daughters in every part of the world - for those caught up in drug and alcohol addictions, in sexual abuse, slave trading, human trafficking, abortion of innocent babies in the womb and suicide to mention only some of the desperate needs that plague our world in this new millennium. 

It was to bring the compassion and healing of Jesus to such needy peoples that St. Dominic founded his Order -  specifically for their salvation.  We read in the Book of Numbers (Ch.25)  ‘the Lord said to Moses: ‘Phinehas the priest, has turned my wrath away from the children of Israel my people, because he was the only one among them to have the same zeal as I have…’.  How appropriately these consoling words can be applied to St. Dominic and hopefully also to his children in his Order.

Each member of St. Dominic’s family is called to imitate this same zeal for the salvation of souls – those of us in the cloistered life are called to devote ourselves without hindrance to praying and pleading with God for the salvation of all peoples – called to be devoured by the same zeal as Dominic - and by frequent contact with the furnace of love as he was, we too are set on fire with ardour for the spreading of God’s Kingdom on earth and the salvation of souls.