The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Group will be posting meditations for the fifteen Tuesdays leading up to the feast of our Father Dominic on August 8th.   See here for more information on the 15 Tuesdays devotion.

When we refer to Our Holy Father Dominic as “Preacher of Grace”, we should see immediately that the object of preaching ought to be the Divine Word, Christ Himself, for the salvation of souls.  In the Dominican mystical tradition, this preaching can be thought of as participating in the Divine Birth. This is a theme prevalent in the writing of the German Dominican Meister Eckhart and his disciples, John Tauler and Henry Suso.  Just as the Blessed Virgin Mary gave birth to Christ, we too bring the Divine Word to birth in the world through our preaching. Even more fundamental to this, though, is that the Divine Birth must first happen interiorly, otherwise our preaching risks becoming self-centered and oriented away from Christ.

In exploring this theme, Meister Eckhart points to the story of the Finding of Jesus.  After searching for the Lord for three days, Mary and Joseph discover Him in the Temple where they had started their journey.  They had to leave the crowd behind in order to find Him in His Father’s House. Eckhart suggests that to seek the Divine Birth interiorly, we must also return to the source. We must set aside “the crowd”, all distractions, imagination, even our preconceived knowledge and learning, and humbly return to the pursuit of holiness, which is how God roots Himself in the soul by grace.  This is where God the Father speaks his Word to us, communicating His very own life, making us partakers of the divine nature. Everything that we do henceforth is an effect of this: God abiding, preaching, and working in us and through us.

We also see that the Lord was found in the Temple “sitting in the midst of the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions”, and as they went away, Mary “kept all these things in her heart” in deep reflection. The Divine Birth of the Word in the soul continually unfolds through the careful elucidation of divine truths through study, unselfish disputation, and prayerful contemplation.  Only after this can we emulate Our Holy Father Dominic by doing as the Blessed Virgin Mary did: humbly bring the Divine Word to birth in the world through holy preaching.

The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Group will be posting meditations for the fifteen Tuesdays leading up to the feast of our Father Dominic on August 8th.   See here for more information on the 15 Tuesdays devotion.

Note that Thursday May 24th is traditionally the celebration of the Translation of Our Holy Father St Dominic which was the event that associated Tuesdays with devotion to him.

Forty days after the birth of  Jesus, Our Blessed Mother went to  the Temple, to offer her first-born Son to God.  The first-born son was to be presented to the Lord in remembrance of the first-born of Israel who had been passed over when the eldest males of Egypt were struck down.  The Presentation of the Lord in the Temple is an epiphany, another step God’s self revelation to the world. Simeon says of Jesus that he is “a light to the revelation of the Gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel” (Luke 2:32).

Dominic too would be a light for people in the darkness of sin and confusion.  Before his birth, his mother had a vision of a hound who raced through the world spreading fire with a torch held in his mouth.  His two older brothers had already left for the Priesthood, but his mother and father unquestioningly presented another son to God.  St. Dominic became a Knight who embodied chastity in his service to God. Dominic drew others by the example of his life back toward God and away from heresy.  He brought the light of Truth to the Albigensians, in particular by showing them the goodness of creation and the way in which the body cooperates with the spirit.  .

Today we find ourselves in a similar battle.  There are many in the world today who not only deny the divinity Jesus, but  the goodness of existence. We must live chaste lives in defense of the Truth, giving witness to well ordered sexuality but also to purity of purpose.  We have the Sacrifice of the Mass and the Prayer of the Church to help guide us on this path. The Rosary is a shield which protects and serves as an example of the path toward the Truth.  We also reach out to others, both spiritually and temporarily, to build a sense of community, so all share the gifts of the Holy Spirit. We must become torches that ignite everything around us.

Dominic throughout his life was dedicated to Prayer, Preaching, Study and the building of Communities.  After 800 years his mission is continued through each one of us as we go about our daily lives. It is now fully our mission to share the Truth with a world in disarray and in need.

The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Group will be posting meditations for the fifteen Tuesdays leading up to the feast of our Father Dominic on August 8th.   See here for more information on the 15 Tuesdays devotion.

Our Lord, the light of the world, did not allow his disciples to use the title Messiah. Trying to understand what the teacher was explaining to the people, the apostles asked for the meaning of his many parables. They also asked him when he would restore Israel. He told them it is not for man to know, but God. In God’s time, Israel would be restored and Jesus would come again.

Dominic, trying to establish the Order of Preachers, knew that all good things would come, but in God’s time and with prayer. While he and his fellow students waited on proper recognition of the Order, they spent their time studying Scripture and learning in the universities.

We too must have patience for those things we ask of God. We do not know his ways or his time. We must be servants in prayer, ask in Christ’s name, and go on with our lives as we wait. We cannot always know when he has answered our prayers, but must trust in Christ, continue to pray, and wait patiently for the answer.

Ultimately, Dominic’s patience was rewarded with the establishment of an order of preaching friars. He would go forth spreading the light of the Lord as was foretold to his mother. Only with patient studying and prayer can we too be creative and show God’s light to the world. Then our prayers will be answered.

The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Group will be posting meditations for the fifteen Tuesdays leading up to the feast of our Father Dominic on August 8th.   See here for more information on the 15 Tuesdays devotion.

Having heard from the Archangel Gabriel that her barren cousin Elizabeth is also miraculously with child, Mary rushes off to aid her in the final months of pregnancy. This zealous and charitable act earns from Elizabeth the first human proclamation of Mary’s faithfulness: “…And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord” (Luke 1:45). Mary’s spirit-filled response is the Magnificat: “My soul doth magnify the Lord…” (Luke 1:46). In her faithfulness, Mary proclaims the goodness of God.

The Visitation of Mary to Elizabeth shows us that belief in the power of God leads to the desire to praise Him, to bless His Holy Name, and to preach the good news of His love. St Dominic had the reputation of speaking only To God or About Him. He preached Truth, especially to those separated from the Church by heresy. As a doctor heals patients with medicine, Dominic healed confused souls with Truth and led them back to the Church. This won him the title “Doctor of Truth”.

The Blessed Virgin Mary became our spiritual Mother and is praised in all generations because of her humble and pure faithfulness. Dominic founded a family that strives to follow his holy example, faithfully preaching Truth in a confused world.  It is a blessing to preach the Good News of Christ’s love, and to do it well. But we are first and foremost called to be faithful.  That in itself is a grace.

The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Group will be posting a meditation for the next fifteen Tuesdays leading up to the feast of our Father Dominic on August 8th.   See here for more information on the 15 Tuesdays devotion.

Our Lord called Himself the ‘Light of the World.’ When the Light took on human flesh, entering the world, He did so through the cooperation of Mary. According to an ancient tradition, Mary had taken a vow of virginity so that she might commit herself entirely to God. Nevertheless, when He called her to be a mother she immediately accepted. By putting aside her own desires, she was more completely committed to God than she ever could have been otherwise.

We see a similar response to God’s call, to vocation, in the life of our Father Dominic. He was a member of a religious community Canons Regular in Spain, where he could have expected to stay until he died. When he was picked by the Bishop to take part in a match-making mission on behalf of the King, Dominic discovered that the Albigensians of southern France were repelled by the worldly clerics sent to bring them back into the Church. He realized that to be successful, the missionaries would have to do more than proclaim the Gospel with their lips. They would need to live the Gospel in every aspect of their lives.

Dominic committed himself completely to this new vocation and earned for himself the title ‘Light of the Church.’ It is a title which reminds us that the light which we honor in him was none other than Light of the World, Jesus Christ. It is true that Dominic identified problems in the Church’s missionary efforts and established the Order of Preachers to solve those problems, but he was not successful on his own. As perceptive and skillful as he was, he depended on the intercession of Our Lady and her gift of the Rosary to ultimately be successful. As with Mary, our Father Dominic’s greatness lies in having set his own will aside to follow a different path set out for him. We too must respond to God’s call, setting aside our own ideas of how life should be to grow in holiness wherever God has actually put us.