The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Chapter 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.

It has been a long-standing tradition since the early Church that the Virgin Mary was Crowned Queen of Heaven.  As Christ is the King, so Mary is the Queen Mother. The Blessed Virgin has been pictured wearing a crown for centuries.  A painting following the victory at the Battle of Lepanto shows Mary with a resplendent Crown and a sword leading the victorious Holy League against the Ottoman Turks in 1571.  Before the battle, Pope Pius V had ordered that all the Churches of Rome be opened and that all of Rome recite the Rosary continuously. The battle was won and the Turkish ambition temporarily thwarted.  Pope Pius V instituted the feast of Our Lady of Victory which is known today, Our Lady of the Rosary. Mary was described as a Queen by Pope Sixtus IV, Benedict XIV and St. Alphonsus Liguori stated that since she was the mother of the King of Kings, Mary had the right to be honored with the title of Queen.

As Queen, Mary taught our Father Dominic the Rosary as a weapon against evil and heresy.   In depictions of that event, St. Dominic is always kneeling as he receives the Rosary, honoring her, as a Queen and teacher.  We too receive the blessings from our Blessed Mother when we pray the Rosary which we have learned from our Father Dominic. It  is a gift we can all add to our daily prayer life and as we meditate on the Mysteries we are able to relive the life, sacrifice and triumph of Jesus.  The Crowning of Mary is not the end of the story of Jesus. Rather it is the culmination of Redemption, where creation is not only restored to the glory it possessed before the fall but raised to new heights.

The Lay Dominicans of the Queen of the Holy Rosary Chapter 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.

At the end of Mary’s pilgrimage on earth, she was taken body and soul into heaven or, as Eastern Christians would say, she fell asleep in the Lord. Consider the rejoicing throng of angels and saints that greeted her upon her entry into the heavenly Jerusalem. On the feast of the Assumption we hear in the Liturgy of King David bringing the Ark to Jerusalem and all of Israel assembled. “Play musical instruments… and make a loud sound rejoicing.” Mary, the true Arc of the Covenant, was brought to her final resting place, never more to be separated from her Beloved Son.

How fitting it is that on the feast of her Assumption, the end of Mary’s pilgrimage on earth, Our Holy Father Dominic dispersed the brethren to preach in Italy, Spain, and France, thus associating the mission of the Order with her glorious arrival in Heaven. One famous vision of heaven saw numerous saints adoring Christ but no Dominicans among them until Mary lifted her mantle and revealed the Order of Preachers, close to her and under her protection. Bl Sadoc O.P and his companions were martyred in Poland while singing the Salve Regina, and the Dominican custom of continuing to sing that song as the last prayer before the great silence of night pays homage to her as our special advocate, both in this life and in our journey to the next.

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.

In his first letter to the Corinthians, St. Paul speaks of different kinds of spiritual gifts given to those baptized into Christ, distributed by the Holy Spirit.  The same Spirit directs each spiritual gift toward the “common good” of salvation of souls. It is the animating character of the Holy Spirit that facilitates the preaching of the Gospel around the world by means of these special gifts, and it is for this reason that the action of the Holy Spirit lies at the very core of the mission of the Order of Preachers.

A keen awareness of the necessity of the Holy Spirit is evident from the very beginning of the Order.  As recorded in the Nine Ways of Prayer of St. Dominic, his brothers and sisters would sometimes find Our Holy Father Dominic standing with his hands “outstretched above his head and joined together” like an arrow “which has been shot from a taut bow straight upwards into the sky”.  Dominic’s observers believed that while doing this, Dominic was begging God for the gifts of the Holy Spirit for the good of the Order.

In fact, in the Legend of Blessed Jordan of Saxony, we find that Dominic’s immediate successor also often implored the assistance of the Holy Spirit.  In one particular case, Jordan did so in order to prevent another brother from leaving the Order. On the holy feast of Pentecost, Jordan knelt and led the brothers in recitation of the ancient hymn to the Holy Spirit, the Veni Creator.  Jordan’s prayer came to pass even before the hymn was ended, and not only did the brother not leave the Order, he was also given special gifts by the Holy Spirit to eventually become “a skilled teacher and able preacher”.

Without the Holy Spirit to give life to the Order of Preachers, the Order would have no means of achieving its goal of preaching for the salvation of souls.  Each member of the Order is given different spiritual gifts to bring about that goal, and those gifts take shape in many different ways. Every Dominican ought to entrust himself or herself entirely to the Spirit in order to become the most effective instrument of God possible.  Therefore, let us never fail to imitate Dominic and Jordan in begging the Holy Spirit to pour out these gifts in abundance over the Order.

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.

“Do not cling to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father … I did not say these things to you from the beginning, because I was with you…if I do not go away, the Counselor will not come to you…When the Spirit of Truth comes, He will guide you to all Truth” (John 20:17; John 16: 4,7,13).

As Mary Magdalene wished to cling to Jesus after His Death and Resurrection, so we often cling to the familiar to feel secure. But this clinging keeps us from venturing out to discover the unknown.

Recently, I had the chance to try indoor rock climbing.  I thought my greatest challenge would be climbing to the top. However, my elation at reaching the summit faded quickly as I contemplated my descent. There was a system in place that allowed climbers to rappel down the wall easily, but it required me to lean away from the wall and drop, without feeling any support first. It took many minutes of positive self-talk and reassurances from friends who had already finished the climb before I finally trusted.  I leaned back and fell; sure enough, the resistance was there as I easily hopped down the wall. As many times as I was reassured and reassured others, we each had to make our own decision to trust.

When Jesus was with His apostles and friends, they clung to Him; they could see Him, touch Him, and embrace Him. After many assurances that He would be with them always, He ascended into Heaven and they were seemingly left without Him. But He sent the Spirit and fed their faith with His own Body, the Holy Eucharist. Now they understood faith. They trusted and could spread the Truth of the Gospel.

Our spiritual father St. Dominic is a great example of trusting God completely. He began the Order of Preachers at a time when preachers were only bishops, and there were already many orders fulfilling the needs of the Church. He trusted in the unlikely calling to found a group of highly educated, missionary beggars, i.e. itinerant preachers.

We face the challenge in unfamiliar situations to remember our life lessons and apply them as we begin to see God’s will in everything and learn to trust that He is always with us. Let us pray for the grace to make every decision guided by our holy faith, venturing everyday towards Eternity.

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.

In his letter to the Corinthians, St Paul reminds us that if Christ had not been raised from the dead, then our Faith is vain, worthless, without foundation. It is nevertheless common to hear prominent, well credentialed people speaking of the ‘truth’ of the Resurrection rather than its ‘historicity.’ They may not deny that the Resurrection is historical but instead emphasize the faith of the early Christians, or the archetypal significance of the event, or other things that say less than what St Paul insists upon. That way of speaking manipulates distinctions that the Church has made since at least St Augustine to differentiate parts of Sacred Scripture that are true in only an allegorical or poetic way from those that recall historical facts.

The Resurrection as a fact of history underlines the objective goodness of creation. Those who defend the ‘truth’ of the Resurrection while denying that it actually happened deny the inherent goodness of creation and make it conditional on human will. It is good because of what people believe, rather than being good because God proclaimed it so and sent his only Son to redeem it.

Our Holy Father Dominic insisted on the goodness of the created, material world to the Albigensian men and women who denied vehemently that it was. Dominicans follow his example when they defend the Resurrection as a fact of history and not a pious myth. In this, members of the Order of Preachers have the special protection and intercession of the first person to see the empty tomb, the first to tell the apostles it was empty, the first to see the Lord in his risen flesh. St Mary Magdalene, the Apostle to the Apostles, exemplified contemplative love bursting forth into action that first Easter Sunday. For that she has been venerated as a patroness of the Order almost since its founding. May her intercession and that of St Dominic gain for each of us the grace to proclaim to the world Jesus Christ risen from the dead.

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.

The cross was a means of capital punishment that was intended to send a message through ultimate humiliation of the person, but through Christ, it has become the ultimate symbol as a gift of salvation.  Within the suffering and pain Our Lord endured upon the cross, Christ paid the price for our own faults and shortcomings. Christ crucified was an act of true sacrificial love that must burst forth from each of us, like the blood and water that gushed forth from His pierced side.

In this act of sacrificial love God reached out to us through His Son to give us a way to return to Him.  God has no need of our love, but He would not leave us abandoned and orphaned because He created us in his image and likeness, a uniqueness in creation.  Within each of us is planted the desire to return to Him, which we can only accomplish by following His way. This way is like a “Bridge” that St. Catherine of Siena would describe.   Unlike any other bridge, instead of walking across we must climb upwards, as Jesus was lifted high upon the cross. With our first steps, we must place ourselves at His feet. The nails are protruding holding His feet tight, like the things of this world that have bound each of us.  We must find the strength to release ourselves moving ever upward. We are not alone, this cross became Jesus’ final pulpit where He gave us His mother as ours, she too was at the foot of the cross and joins us on this journey. Like Our Holy Father Dominic we must rely on Mary’s intercession to help us keep our eyes on the holy.  The rosary a cornerstone of a lay Dominican’s prayer life, leads us bead by bead on this climb. Once you have completed the journey of releasing yourself, you arrive at His pierced side. It is the most beautiful ache of His heart that you come to know. The ache and desire for His most beloved to be with Him, to know Him. Oh, Sacred Heart of Jesus live in me, and I in You!  Oh, Immaculate Heart of Mary pray for us!! Finally, you reach the most beautiful stop on your ascent, a peace where you are at His mouth. You hear his words of thirst and desire to draw His children to Himself. St. Theresa of Calcutta once said, “Suffering, pain, sorrow, humiliation, feelings of loneliness, are nothing but the kiss of Jesus, a sign that you have been so close that He can kiss you.” All of these are gifts of the cross.

These gifts of the cross are not gifts to be hoarded or left unopened, they are treasures of redemption.   In order to redeem us Christ had to take upon himself our sinful nature, then be lifted up on the cross as an admirable exchange for our sin.  This shedding of His blood flung open the doors of heaven allowing us to renter into relationship with our creator. A union that is now solidified in the Eucharistic celebrations of the church.  In the liturgy of the Eucharistic, Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is made present to us at the mass. In receiving the Eucharist we become one with Christ and each other.   In becoming one with Christ we also join with Him in His plan of salvation.  A plan that sometimes asks us to accept difficulty, hardship, and persecution.  In the Gospel of Matthew Jesus reminds us, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.” (Mt. 16:24) Our suffering can be used to help save the world and each other.  Asked why we suffer, it is out of love. This is why Jesus suffered and died for each of us. As a follower of Christ, we bear with each other’s faults because Christ bore our faults, so much so that it saved us from ourselves.

Christ did not hold our shortcomings against us, He said, “Forgive them, for they know not what they do.”  We must also recognize, Jesus showed us how to love one another, through forgiveness. Each of us have family, co-workers, community members, or neighbors that irritate us.  The way of the cross would require us to reach out in compassion and love to these people, because they are our neighbors. Like the Good Samaritan we are to reach out with love so that others can know Christ did not just come to redeem some of us, He came to redeem all of us.  As Dominicans this is part of our preaching mission to take this news out to all we meet. With arms outstretched as Dominic in his 6th way of prayer may we all strive to be Christ to others in words, thoughts, and deeds.  Jesus you are the way, the truth, and the life!

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.

Christ, the innocent lamb, embraces his cross and takes it up. Through our baptism we have, in the words of St. Paul, “put on” Christ. This “putting on” Christ means to imitate him in word and deed, to become a humble servant to those in need just as he did in his sacred passion and death. For Our Holy Father Dominic, the cross held such significance that he not only embraced it as the symbol of his Order, but would also pray with arms outstretched in the form of a cross. It was in this form of prayer that Dominic served his fellow man by raising a young boy from death to life, just as Christ, through his cross, brought us from the death of sin to life. Let us then embrace the cross as Christ did and learn from it.

As lay members of the Order of Preachers, we robe ourselves in the cross which is both black and white. These colors hold significant meaning for the Dominican. According to Br. William Hinnebusch, O.P. in his book Dominican Spirituality (p. 154),  white symbolizes Christ’s innocence and black his humility. Through the putting on of this sacramental, we again “put on” Christ and imitate him in his innocence and humility.

Just as Isaac, in the Old Testament, carried the wood he was to be sacrificed on, so Jesus, the innocent Lamb, willingly carried the wood of his cross. We share in the guilt of our first parents, but God has given us a means to “crush the head of the serpent” and robe ourselves in the innocence of Christ. Through our frequent participation in the sacraments, we, by grace, throw off the garment of guilt and put on the innocence of Christ and are thus united more closely to the Lamb of God.

The black of the habit reminds us to put on the virtue of humility. Humility is the attitude of the Christian that teaches us to serve Christ over ourselves. In the words of St. John the Baptist, it is an attitude of, “He must increase and I must decrease.” Christ perfectly lived the virtue of humility especially in carrying his cross. Through suffering, Christ carried out the will of his Father despite the insults and lies, the spit and dirt that was tenderly wiped away by Veronica, or the ignorance of those leading him like a lamb to be slaughtered. He did not excuse or justify himself, complain or bicker, and he was not angry at their ignorance but diligently and humbly, made his way to Golgotha. Let us follow Christ as we carry our cross and remember that as it is written in Scripture, “He who humbles himself, will be exalted.”

Oh innocent Jesus! You offered yourself up for us in such a humiliating way to show us your love. May we join with Mary our Mother and follow you in innocence and humility and thus comfort you as she did on your way! Oh Jesus meek and humble of heart, make our hearts like unto thine!

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.

The Order of Preachers has long had a devotion to Our Lord’s Crown of Thorns.  After the relic of the Crown of Thorns was acquired by St. Louis IX, King of France, in the middle of the 13th century, some of the precious thorns were given into the care of the Dominican friars who commemorated the occasion of the Crown’s reception annually.  In order to call special attention to the Crown, a feast day was inserted into the Dominican calendar for April 24th most likely by the former Master General, Bl. Humbert of Romans.

As a Third Order Franciscan, King Louis IX nurtured an intense devotion to the Crown of Thorns throughout his reign and built one of the most beautiful chapels in all of Paris, the Sainte-Chapelle, to house the relic.  Louis wanted to draw attention to the Crown of Thorns to remind himself and his subjects of Our Lord’s unique Kingship, which Louis sought to emulate in his own governance: the Kingship of the suffering servant. Louis’ kingship was not for himself; it was poured out in service of others, especially the poor, and for the sanctification of society.

Like St. Louis, all Dominicans can look to the Crown of Thorns for inspiration in living out the kingly mission of Our Lord in our apostolic work.  Our Holy Father Dominic specifically intended for his followers to serve in parishes, councils, dioceses, universities, and even secular organizations, not for themselves, but in order to bring the Word of God into every facet of society.  This is something that the laity, in particular, are uniquely able and empowered to do. In his book, “Dominican Laity and the Year 2000”, Fr. Anthony Dao Quang Chinh, O.P., states that, “Lay Dominicans are called by God to live in the ordinary circumstances of family and social life.  They are destined by God to bring Jesus’ salvation to its fullness. As Jesus sanctified the world, Dominican laity, as individuals and as groups, will sanctify society.”

By no means will the Dominican vocation earn worldly rewards; quite the opposite.  In following Him, we can find consolation in Our Lord’s words: “If the world hates you, understand that it hated Me first.”  This is the spirituality of our Order: to bear the Crown of Thorns in life, in imitation of Christ the King, so that we might be crowned by Him with glory in heaven.

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.

The Scourging of Christ Jesus shows us the weakness of human flesh. How easy it is to break the barrier of our body and expose our innermost flesh to pain at every movement! Every word and action of Our Lord has a deeper meaning, as does every silent moment. “As a lamb led to the slaughter He was silent and opened not His mouth” (Isaiah 53:7). He willingly allowed this suffering to teach us how to suffer, to be the Sacrifice for forgiveness of sin. This is what sin looks like; it tears us apart and exposes us to more pain and suffering. “He who knew no sin was made sin for us” (2 Cor. 5:21). He took our punishment in His own Flesh, and sanctified it. He made it holy in His holy Body. Not only did He embrace and sanctify the eternal punishment of original sin, the purity of the God-Man’s Flesh made holy all that we suffer in this life, giving new meaning and purpose to a life aligned with God’s will.

Our spiritual Father St. Dominic took the Blessed Scourging to prayer, and then made it come alive. In his Nine Ways of Prayer we see that the Third is self-flagellation, an entering into Christ’s own experience of bodily pain and suffering. God blessed Dominic’s desire with the grace and courage to purify his flesh for his own few sins, as well as for the purification of poor sinners. Dominic’s life was one of mortification, a continual separation from the worldly in order to more freely move toward the eternal. He ate little, slept little, donated his precious books to give money to those even poorer than himself. Father Dominic used an iron chain on himself, but only asked his followers to use wooden switches.

Today it is a rare calling to suffer with Christ on the path of extreme mortification, but we can take comfort in the example of Our Blessed Mother. Although she did not suffer visible scourging, we know that She was mysteriously and intimately united with Her Son in all His sufferings by means of a perfectly-aligned will. By following Her example and accomplishing God’s will, we too are drawn into His suffering through faithful meditation on His Passion and Death, the sacrifice of His Flesh for the sanctification of our own. We should strive in our prayer life to know God more fully, and in knowing Him we will love Him. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out all fear” (1 John 4:18). Let us rejoice and give thanks for His mercy, justice, and love, and never cease to pray: Lord, increase our desire to accomplish your holy will.

Jesus instructed us to ask the Father that we be spared from tests of our obedience to God’s will. “Lead us not into temptation.” Though Our Lord could not have sinned, he set an example for us in the garden of Gethsemane while awaiting the arrival of the betrayer, and he encouraged the apostles to do similarly. “My Father, if it is possible, let this chalice pass me by.” There is a certain comfort in knowing that we are instructed to beg that our trials be bearable and that Our Lord himself did the same.

What then should we make of Our Holy Father Dominic’s strong desire for martyrdom? When threatened with death by men opposed to his preaching, Dominic asked to be killed slowly so as to merit as much as possible for others. His eagerness dissuaded them from murder, but his desire was sincere. Our Father Francis showed a similar eagerness, boldly preaching in Muslim lands even to the Sultan. Like the sons of Zebedee in the Gospels, they wanted to drink the chalice, but we cannot attribute their zeal to naivete or to having lived in a rougher, more brutal age. The teacher of the Little Way, St Theresa of the Child Jesus, lived in a privileged, comfortable time close to our own and she too wrote of her longing for martyrdom in the missions.

The resolution to this apparent paradox is in the second part of the Our Lord’s prayer in Gethsemane. The desire for martyrdom, a recurring theme in the lives of the Saints, is the expression of desire to imitate Jesus completely.  Lead us not into temptation, because our own wills are weak, but if God’s will is what moves us we can do or endure anything.

Dominic never made it to Hungary or Poland, but he planted the desire for martyrdom firmly in the charism of the Order of Preachers.  Others followed him to those mission fields and to Florida, to Vietnam, to Japan, and witnessed to the Faith with their blood. Dominic’s martyrdom was incessant travel, ecclesiastical bureaucracy, unending organization.In doing those things he set an example for us to follow Our Lord completely, saying with Jesus not my will, but “Thy will be done.”