St Dominic
Today we celebrate the feast day of St. Dominic. St. Dominic was truly chosen by God. St. Dominic's mother had made a pilgrimage to an abbey which was located in Silos. During that time there were many clear signs of the great child that she would be blessed bear. One of the most famous legends says that during the pilgrimage that she was on, St. Dominic's mother Joan had a very beautiful dream of a dog leaping from her womb with a torch in its mouth. The animal that she had dreamed of had seemed to set the earth on fire. After this beautiful dream, St. Dominic's parents decided to name him Dominic which is a play on the words Domini canis, meaning the Lord's dog in Latin.
St. Dominic was born in Castile, Spain, and St. Dominic was able to be trained for the priesthood by an uncle who was a priest. St. Dominic had been devoted to his studies and he studied the arts and he had also studied theology. Later on in his life he had became a canon of the cathedral at Osma, where there was a large attempt to revive the apostolic common life that is described in the Acts of the Apostles.
While St. Dominic had gone on a journey through France with his bishop at the time, St. Dominic was able to go face to face with the then virulent Albigensian heresy which was in Languedoc. The Albigensians, had believed that all matter was evil therefore, they had denied the Incarnation and the sacraments. On the same principle, they abstained from procreation and they decided to take a minimum amount of food and drink.
During his life St. Dominic had sensed the urgent need for the Church to deal with this heresy, and he was commissioned to be part of the preaching against the heresy. However, after some time he had seen why the preaching was failing: the ordinary people had admired and followed the heroes that were part of the Albigenses. Understandably, they were not impressed by the Catholic preachers who had been travelling by horse and stayed at the best inns and had servants. Therefore St. Dominic with three Cistercians, began preaching according to The Gospel ideal. He decided to continue this work for 10 years, and he was successful with the ordinary people but not with the leaders.
St. Dominic’s fellow preachers had gradually became a community, and during the year 1215, St. Dominic had founded a religious house in Toulouse, which marked the beginning of the Order of Preachers also known as the Dominicans.
St. Dominic's ideal, was that his Order, was to organically link a life with God, study, and prayer in all forms, with a ministry of salvation to people by the word of God. His ideal was: contemplata tradere: “to pass on the fruits of contemplation” or “to speak only of God or with God.”
St. Dominic’s feast day is celebrated on August 8. St. Dominic is the patron saint of Astronomers and the Dominican Republic.
We are all called to be like St. Dominic and light this world on fire by preaching The Gospel with others and spreading God's love with everyone.
Prayer to St. Dominic
Help us St. Dominic to place all of our attention on Christ and not on materialistic things or others. Help us to guide others to Christ and help us to find a good balance of work, prayer and rest in our lives.
Amen
St. Dominic pray for us
St. Joseph pray for us
May we continue to strengthen our journey to sainthood and keep others in our prayers.
Works cited
Information (read from, not taken):
Franciscan media. “Saint Dominic. ”Saint Dominic | Franciscan Media. Accessed August 8, 2021.
Images:
Saint Dominic. August 8, 2021. St. Dominic - Google Search.