Dominic was born at Calaruega, in Spain, of the noble family of the Guzmans, and went through his liberal and theological studies at Palencia. He made great progress in learning, and became a Canon Regular of the Church, of Osma, and afterwards instituted the Order of Friars Preachers. While his mother was with child, she dreamt she was carrying in her womb a little dog holding a torch in his mouth with which, as soon as he was born, he would set fire to the world. This dream signified that he would kindle Christian piety among the nations by the splendour of his sanctity and teaching. Events proved its truth, for he fulfilled the prophecy both in person, and later on by the brethren of his Order. His genius and virtue shone forth especially in confounding the heretics who were attempting to infect the people of Toulouse with their baneful errors. He was occupied for seven years in this undertaking. Then he went to Rome for the Council of Lateran, with the bishop of Toulouse, to obtain from Pope Innocent III the confirmation of the Order he had instituted. But while the matter was under consideration, the Pope advised Dominic to return to his disciples and choose a rule. On his return to Rome, he obtained the confirmation of the Order of Preachers from Pope Honorius III, the immediate successor of Pope Innocent III. In Rome itself he founded two monasteries, one for men and the other for women. He raised three dead to life, and worked many other miracles, in consequence of which the Order of Preachers began to spread in a wonderful manner. Monasteries were built by his means in every part of the world, and through his teaching numbers of men embraced a holy and religious manner of life. In 1221 he fell into a fever at Bologna. When he saw he was about to die, calling together his brethren and children, he exhorted them to innocence and purity of life, and left them as their true inheritance the virtues of charity, humility, and poverty. While the brethren were praying round him, at the words, “Come to his aid, you Saints of God, run to meet him, O you Angels,” he fell asleep in the Lord, on the eighth of the Ides of August. Pope Gregory IX. placed him among the Saints.
Dom Prosper Guéranger:
“The father of the Preachers,” said the Eternal Father to Saint Catherine of Siena, “established his principle on the light, by making it his aim and his armour. He took upon him the office of the Word my Son, sowing my word, dispelling darkness, enlightening the Earth. Mary, by whom I gave him to the world, made him the extirpator of heresies.”
The Order called to become the chief support of the Sovereign Pontiff in uprooting pernicious doctrines ought, if possible, to justify that name even more than its Patriarch: the first of the tribunals of Holy Church, the Holy Roman Universal Inquisition, the Holy Office, truly invested with the Office of the Word with his two-edged sword to convert or to chastise, could find no instrument more trusty or more sure. Little thought the virgin of Siena, or the illustrious author of the Divina Commedia, that the chief title of the Dominican family to the grateful love of the people would be discussed in a certain apologetic school, and there discarded as insulting, or dissembled as unpleasant. The present age glories in a liberalism which has given proofs of its power by multiplying rains, and which rests on no better philosophical basis than a strange confusion between licence and liberty: only such intellectual grovelling could have failed to understand that in a society which has faith for the basis of its institutions as well as the principle of salvation for all, no crime could equal that of shaking the foundation on which thus rest both social interest and the most precious possession of individuals. Neither the idea of justice, nor still less that of liberty, could consist in leaving to the mercy of evil or evil men, the weak who are unable to protect themselves. This truth was the axiom and the glory of chivalry: the brothers of Peter the Martyr devoted their lives to protect the safety of the children of God against the surprises of the strong armed one, and the “business that walks about in the dark” (Psalms xc. 6). It was the honour of the “saintly flock led by Dominic along a way, where they thrive well who do not go astray” (Dante, Paradiso, Canto x.).
Who could be truer knights than those athletes of the faith taking their sacred vow in the form of allegiance and choosing for their Lady her who, terrible as an army, alone crushes heresies through out the whole world. To the buckler of truth and the sword of the word, she who keeps in Sion the armour of valiant men added for her devoted liege men the Rosary, the special mark of her own militia. She, as being their true commander-in-chief, assigned them the habit of her choice, and in the person of Blessed Reginald anointed them with her own hands for the battle. She herself too watched over the recruiting of the holy band, attracting to it from among the elite youth of the universities, souls the purest, the most generously devoted, and of the noblest intellect. At Paris, the capital of theology, and Bologna, of law and jurisprudence, masters and scholars, disciples of every branch of science, were pursued and overtaken by the sweet Queen amid incidents more heavenly than earthly. How graceful were those beginnings in which Dominic’s virginal serenity seemed to surround all his children! It was indeed in this the Order of light that the Gospel word was seen verified: “Blessed are the clean of heart, for they will see God” (Matthew v. 8).
Eyes enlightened from above beheld the foundations of the Friars Preachers under the figure of fields of lilies. And Mary, by whom the Splendour of Eternal Light came down to us, became their heavenly mistress and led them from every science to wisdom, the friend of pure hearts. She came accompanied by Cecilia and Catherine, to bless their rest at night, and covered them all with her royal mantle beside the throne of our Lord. After this we are not astonished at the freshness and purity which continued even after Saint Dominic, under the generalship of Jordan of Saxony, Raymund of Pennafort, John the Teutonic and Humbert de Romans, in those Lives of the Brethren, and Lives of the Sisters, so happily handed down to us. It is instructive to note that in the Dominican family, apostolic in its very essence, the Sisters were founded ten years before the Brethren, which shows how, in the Church of God, action can never be fruitful unless preceded and accompanied by contemplation, which obtains for it every blessing and grace.
Notre Dame de Prouille, at the foot of the Pyrenees, was not only by this right of primogeniture, the beginning of the whole Order. It was here also that the first companions of Saint Dominic made with him their choice of a Rul, and divided the world among them, going from here to found the Convents of Saint Romanus at Toulouse, Saint James at Paris, Saint Nicholas at Bologna, Saint Sixtus and Saint Sabina in the Eternal City. About the same period, the establishment of the Militia of Jesus Christ, placed under the direction of the Friars Preachers secular persons who undertook to defend, by all the means in their power, the goods and liberty of the Church against the aggressions of heresy. When the sectaries had laid down their arms leaving the world in peace for a time, the association did not disappear: it continued to fight with spiritual arms, and changed its name into that of Third Order of Brothers and Sisters of Penance of Saint Dominic.
* * * * *
HOW many sons and daughters surround you on the Sacred Cycle! This very month, Rose of Lima and Hyacinth keep you company, and your coming has long since been heralded in the Liturgy by Raymund of Pennafort, Thomas of Aquinas, Vincent Ferrer, Peter the Martyr, Catherine of Siena, Pius V and Antoninus. And now at length appears in the firmament the new star whose brightness dispels ignorance, confounds heresy, increases the faith of believers. O Dominic, your blessed mother who preceded you to Heaven, now penetrates in all its fullness the happy meaning of that mysterious vision which once excited her fears. And that other Dominic, the glory of ancient Silos, at whose tomb she received the promise of your blessed birth, rejoices at the tenfold splendour given by you for all eternity to the beautiful name he bequeathed you. But what a special welcome you receive from the Mother of all grace, who heretofore, embracing the feet of her angered Son, stood surety that you would bring back the world to its Saviour! A few years passed away and error, put to confusion, felt that a deadly struggle was engaged between itself and thy family. The Lateran Church saw its walls, which were threatening to fall, strengthened for a time, and the two Princes of the Apostles who had bidden you go and preach, rejoice that the word has gone forth once more into the whole world.
Stricken with barrenness, the nations which the Apocalypse likens to great waters, seemed to have become once for all corrupt. The prostitute of Babylon was setting up her throne before the time when, in imitation of Eliseus, putting the salt of Wisdom into the new vessel of the Order founded by you, you cast this divine salt into the unhealthy waters, neutralised the poison of the beast so soon risen up again, and in spite of the snares which will never cease, rendered the earth habitable once more. How clearly your example shows us that they alone are powerful before God and over the people, who give themselves up to Him without seeking anything else, and only give to others out of their own fullness. Despising, as your historians tell us, every opportunity and every science where Eternal Wisdom was not to be seen, your youth was charmed with her alone. And she, who prevents those that seek her, inundated you from your earliest years with the light and the anticipated sweetness of Heaven. It is from her that overflowed on you that radiant serenity which so struck your contemporaries, and which no occurrence could ever alter. In heavenly peace you drank long draughts from the ever-flowing fountain springing up into eternal life, but while your inmost soul was thus slaking the thirst of its love, the divine source produced a marvellous fecundity, and its streams becoming yours, your fountains were conveyed abroad in the streets, you divide your waters. You had welcomed Wisdom and she exalted you. Not content to adorn your brow with the rays of the mysterious star, she gave you also the glory of patriarchs, and multiplied your years and your works in those of your sons. In them you have not ceased to be one of the strongest stays of the Church. Science has made your name wonderful among the nations, and because of it their youth is honoured by the ancients. May it ever be for them, as it was for their elders, both the fruit of Wisdom and the way that leads to her. May it be fostered by prayer, for your holy Order so well keeps up the beautiful traditions of prayer, as to approach the nearest, in that respect, to the ancient monastic Orders. To praise, to bless and to preach will be to the end its loved motto, for its apostolate must be, according to the word of the Psalm, the overflowing of the abundance of sweetness tasted in communication with God. Thus strengthened in Sion, thus blessed in its glorious role of propagator and guardian of the truth, your noble family will ever deserve to hear, from the mouth of our Lady herself, that encouragement above all praise: Fortiter, fortiter, viri fortes! “Courage, courage, you men of courage!”Also on this day according to the ROMAN MARTYROLOGY:
At Thessalonica, the birthday of blessed Aristarchus, a disciple and inseparable companion of the blessed Apostle St. Paul, who writes to the Colossians: “My fellow-prisoner Aristarchus salutes you.” He was consecrated bishop of the Thessalonians by the same Apostle, and after long sufferings under Nero, crowned by Christ, rested in peace.
At Rome, on the Via Latina, the martyrdom of blessed Tertullinus, priest and martyr, in the time of emperor Valerian. After being cruelly beaten with rods, after having his sides burned, his mouth shattered, after being stretched on the rack and scourged with whips, he completed his martyrdom by being beheaded.
At Constantinople, the holy martyr Eleutherius, of the senatorial rank, who was put to the sword for Christ in the persecution of Maximian.
In Persia, in the time of king Sapor, the holy martyr Ia and her companions, who, with nine thousand Christian captives, underwent martyrdom after having been subjected to various torments.
At Cologne, St. Protasius, martyr.
At Verona, St. Agabius, bishop and confessor.
At Tours, St. Euphronius, bishop.
At Rome, St. Perpetua, who was baptised by the blessed Apostle St. Peter. She converted to the faith her son Nazarius and her husband Africanus, buried the remains of many holy martyrs, and finally went to our Lord endowed with an abundance of merit.
And in other places, many other holy martyrs, confessors and virgins.
Thanks be to God.
