Christ Church

The collect for today, the Feast of St Dominic (1170-1221), Priest, Friar, Founder of the Order of Preachers (source):

Almighty God,
whose servant Dominic grew in the knowledge of thy truth,
and formed an order of preachers to proclaim the faith of Christ:
by thy grace grant to all thy people a love for thy word
and a longing to share the gospel,
that the whole world may be filled with the knowledge of thee
and of thy Son Jesus Christ our Lord,
who liveth and reigneth with thee,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.

The Epistle: Romans 10:13-17
The Gospel: St John 7:16-18

The Order of Preachers (O.P.) founded by St Dominic is generally known as the Dominicans or Black Friars.

Born at Caleruega in Old Castile, Spain, not far from the abbey of St Dominic of Silos, after whom he was named, Dominic de Guzman was the youngest of four children. Spain at that time was struggling to free itself from centuries of rule by Muslim Moors, so life during Dominic’s childhood was austere and uncertain. He was trained for the priesthood from his youth. In 1199, he was appointed canon at Osma Cathedral, then ordained a priest, and rose to the position of sub-prior.

A turning point in Dominic’s life occurred in 1203, when he accompanied his bishop on official business to Denmark. Traveling through the south of France, he came in contact with the Cathari, a heretical sect based on teachings derived from Mani who lived in Persia in the third century. The Cathari, meaning pure ones in Greek, were known by other names in different parts of Europe. In France, they were called Albigensians because the centre of their greatest strength was the town of Albi in Languedoc.

The Albigensians taught a gnostic and dualistic religion, with a god of light (Truth, the god of the New Testament) and a god of darkness (Error, the god of the Old Testament). Life on earth was a struggle between those gods and their principal forces, spirit and matter. The good life for man required purification from matter. They therefore embraced extreme asceticism and condemned marriage, procreation, war, eating food (or, at least, meat), and the use of anything material in worship. Rejecting the medieval church and the sacraments, they had their own episcopal organisation. Their success was largely due to their austerity, commitment, and organisation; the simplicity and seeming holiness of the lives of Albigensian spiritual leaders formed a stark contrast to the worldliness of many orthodox Christians. The south of France at the end of the 12th century was in fact the centre of a flourishing Provençal culture based on the dominant influence of Albigensianism.

Dominic believed that the highly organised and idealistic Albigensians could be combated by forming communities of disciplined and intellectually equipped men and women to spread the light of the Christian gospel among the people. The first Dominican community was established in 1206 in Prouille, France, made up of a group of devout women converts from Albigensianism who were assigned the task of educating and evangelising girls and young women in the area. Dominic also gathered together a carefully chosen group of men whom he trained as preachers. He and his followers organised public debates with Albigensian leaders that the orthodox often won.

In 1208, an agent of the Albigensian ruler of Toulouse murdered a papal legate, provoking a twenty-year crusade led by Simon de Montfort that crushed the heresy. St Dominic took no part in the violence but worked to reconcile heretics and bring them back into the church. He realised that the long-term solution to the challenge of Albigensianism was to provide better-educated and -trained clergy along with itinerant preachers. He received papal approval in 1216 to found the Order of Preachers with the then-novel vocation of study and preaching.

St Dominic spent the rest of his life traveling in Spain, Italy, and France, establishing communities of preachers and teachers with the mission of reviving the spiritual life of Christians. He was recognised as a devout man with firm faith, a passion for winning souls, and gifts for leadership and organisation. St Dominic saw the need to use all resources of human learning in the service of Christ, and he was convinced that preaching without prayer would not be effective. The Nine Ways of Prayer of Saint Dominic was written sometime between 1260 and 1288 based on testimonies of those who had known St Dominic. This is from the second way of prayer:

Saint Dominic used to pray by throwing himself outstretched upon the ground, lying on his face. He would feel great remorse in his heart and call to mind those words of the Gospel, saying sometimes in a voice loud enough to be heard: “O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.” With devotion and reverence he repeated that verse of David: “I am he that has sinned, I have done wickedly.”

St Dominic encouraged no cult of personality in the order he founded, believing that the best way to honour his memory was to carry on “the holy preaching”. He was canonised by Pope Gregory IX in 1234. His remains are housed at the Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna.

(Most of the above is a slightly revised version of a post of December 2005.)

Artwork:

Fra Angelico, Saint Dominic de Guzman (detail from The Mocking of Christ), 1441. Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence.

Fra Angelico, Christ on the Cross Adored by St Dominic, c. 1442. Fresco, Convento di San Marco, Florence.