St. Dominic (August 8th)
This week is another fairly busy one in terms of special feast days or commemorations.
On August 5th, we celebrate the Dedication of the Basilica of St. Mary Major, one of the four major basilicas of Rome, the others being St. Peter’s, St. Paul’s Outside the Walls, and St. John Lateran, all associated with Constantine, the first Christian Emperor of Rome.
On August 6th, we celebrate the Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord. This is a feast which along with the memorial of Our Lady of the Rosary (celebrated on Oct 7th) entered into the Liturgical Calendar somewhat oddly in commemoration of a couple of (at the time) significant Christian military victories against the (Muslim) Turks in the 15th-16th centuries – the Hungarian lifting of the Turkish Siege of Belgrade (1456) in the first case and victory in the Naval Battle of Lepanto (1571) a century later in the second. Over the course of the centuries, memory of the martial origins of these commemorations has faded away. Instead, both are celebrated now for their theological and devotional dimensions that the names of these feasts evoke.
On August 8th, we celebrate the memorial of St. Dominic, who will be the Saint considered more fully below.
On August 10th, we celebrate the memorial of St. Lawrence, Deacon and Martyr, a beloved saint, who lived during the persecutions of the early Church in Rome. He is remembered among other things for his sense of humor as well as his steadfastness in faith at a time of great challenge and difficulty.
Given a choice however, probably the most significant Saint to reflect on this week would be St. Dominic.
On Saint Dominic, therefore …
St. Dominic was born in 1170 in Caleruega, a small town, in Old Castille in north-central Spain.
His parents were relatively wealthy, yet as often would be the case in the infancy narratives of both prophetic figures in the Bible (Isaac, Samson, Samuel, St. John the Baptist) as well as a multitude of saints afterwards (including the Servite Saint Philip Benizi to whose religious Order I belong) St. Dominic’s parents had difficulty having children. To finally receive him, they had to pray …
As good parents, again, of some means, they sent their their 14 year old future St. Dominic to a monastery at Santa María de La Vid run by the Premonstranean (Norbertine) Order to receive an education.
He then became a priest.
Now the Saints are clearly considered to be special people presented to us by the Church as examples of lives well lived.
But the Saints also are flesh and blood people of their time and place.
And certainly the geography of the region of the future St. Dominic’s birth with the Califates of still largely Muslim Spain to the South and the Cathars of the Albigensian heresy centered in the Pyrenees to the North, necessarily informed much of the direction of his life.
Even before founding the Dominican Order, whose actual name is Order of Preachers, O.P., the future St. Dominic became very much involved in preaching on behalf of the Church against the Cathars of the Albigensian heresy.
The Cathars were a radically ascetic sect rejecting all wealth and considered the very physicality of the world to be evil.
The Dominicans became a mendicant (begging) order in good part because the Cathars found the relative wealth of the already existing religious orders, notably the Benedictines / Cistercians and yes the Premonstraneans, to be scandalous.
To convert the Cathars, to bring them back to the Church, the future St. Dominic found that he had to preach from a position of poverty…
Then popularly St. Dominic is perhaps best known for giving the Catholic Church the (Dominican) Rosary:
By legend, the Blessed Virgin Mary appeared in a vision in 1208 to the future St. Dominic, at the Monastery of Our Lady of Proille, France, where he was stationed, already preaching on behalf of the Catholic Church against the Albigensian heresy, and in the vision she gave him what became the (Dominican) Rosary.
Not taking anything from the miracle as described, the future St. Dominic would not have appreciated what he had received if not for his background:
The Muslims (of Southern Spain) would have been already using a Mishbaha, a beaded prayer chain of 33 beads, which they used to pray over the course of 3 days, to meditate on the 99 names of Allah. They themselves could have begun this practice based on the the tradition of the Christian Desert Fathers (of Egypt) of using a prayer chain of 50 beads to pray over the course of 3 days the 150 Psalms in the Bible.
The Rosary however would put the focus on Mary, an irritant to various Protestant groups in later centuries.
However, in the context of the future St. Dominic's time, where the Cathars were questioning the ultimate value of the material universe, period, Mary was the one who made Jesus not _merely_ the 2nd person of the Most Holy Trinity, but … incarnate / human.
Hence the Rosary became a simple instrument which connected humble, then largely illiterate Catholics (and former Cathars returning to the Catholic faith) to the dignity of their humanity and of the world (that had been created by God) around them.
Indeed, there is a necessary physicality to praying the Rosary… holding that simple beaded, corded, wooden Rosary in one’s hands, connects one to the dignity of the physicality of the world and of the dignity of our own (human) work.
The Rosary therefore became a simple, yet fascinating, practical instrument used by future St. Dominic in his preaching against the other-worldliness of the (then) Albegensian heresy and in favor of the incarnational theology of the Church which proclaims that “the Word (God) became Flesh and dwelt among us” (John 1:14).
And wow, did it catch on! The Rosary remains probably the most popular instrument for prayer across the Catholic world, helping countless people in countless situations find greater peace and encounter with God.
And it came to us because a person, the future St. Dominic was in the right place at the right time, already struggling with exactly the right challenges, to make a simple instrument like the Rosary useful in reminding us of our dignity and the dignity of the world around us.
We have St. Dominic to thank for this, and this is in good part why the Church presents St. Dominic as a saint and a worthy example for us all.
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