On Friday I gave a short review of In the
Image of Saint Dominic: Nine Portraits of Dominican Life by Guy Bedouelle,
O.P. As I mentioned the book creates a spiritual
portrait of nine members of the Order of Preachers that represent some charism of
the Dominicans, all of which reflect some aspect in the character of the order’s
holy founder, St. Dominic de Guzman. What
I’ve done here is identified a short quote for each of the nine portraits that
best highlights that Dominicans qualities and a quote on St. Dominic himself,
which makes ten quotes in all. Here are
the ten quotes.
1.
Blessed Jordan of Saxony: “Jordan recalls unceasingly that
the center of Dominican life is Jesus Christ, who restores all things in
himself, in whom God has restored all things: the abbreviated Word—Verbum abbreviatum—a well-known
patristic and medieval theme, but one which takes on a special resonance when
used by a Friar Preacher and a “Sister Preacheress.”
2.
Saint Peter of Verona: "We should not forget that Peter of
Verona, called Peter Martyr, the first saint of the Order, after its founder,
to be canonized, was an Inquisitor. Born of Catharist parents, he entered the
Dominican Order in 1221, a few months before the death of St. Dominic, who
himself received him in Bologna."
3.
St. Thomas Aquinas: "The 'dumb Ox' as his brethren
nicknamed him, was notably taciturn and silent, 'eager at study and given to prayer'
(in studio assiduous et in oratione
devotus). All were struck by the
humility of this extraordinary mind. [Biographer William of] Tocco had this to
say: 'He was aware that all his knowledge was God's gift; this is why no
movement of vainglory could ever darken his soul, knowing as he did that each
day he received the light of divine truth.”
4.
St. Catherine of Siena: "After receiving at the age of
eighteen the black and white habit of the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic,
"the white symbolizing innocence and the black humility," this
mantellata was led to marriage "in faith" with Christ. In a vision known to mysticism within the
Church and elsewhere in the Order, Christ exchanged his heart with his servant
Catherine."
5.
Fra Angelico (Blessed John of Fiesole): "His painting
never ceases to speak of the Incarnation, manifesting a renewed order in the
world that is expressed by light. Finally, it accords an exceptional place to
the Virgin Mary, seen as the model of the creature living in perfect friendship
with God in the midst of the joys and sufferings that mark salvation
history."
6.
Bartolomé de las Casas: “Las Casas was simply expressing in
his forceful way the two convictions underlying the Christian mission. The evangelist must speak with the voice of
friendship and persuasion, and the one who hears the word must accept it
freely. For at bottom, this is what it
is all about: the fight for justice for the Indians is also a fight for their
freedom. This freedom belongs by right
to every man created in the image of God and ransomed by him.”
7.
St. Catherine de Ricci: "What comes down to us from
St. Catherine herself is a voluminous correspondence, consisting mainly in
spiritual direction. In it we find much
energy, common sense, realism, and especially an appeal to joyousness. There is
nothing lugubrious about her, no wild or extravagant play of imagination, and
in her letters she makes absolutely no allusion to her supernatural privileges
and mystical trials. At most she
occasionally mentions her great weariness."
8.
St. Martin de Porres: “Thus in little Martin’s blood there
flowed two historic destinies, two cultures, that of victorious Catholic Spain
and that of the blacks deported to America for manual labor in this immense
land to be exploited after the destruction of the Incas. His very skin bore the mark of the unprivileged
of this time, but his swarthy face would come to radiate the light of charity.”
9.
Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire: “To the very end,
Lacordaire defended the consequences of his “liberal Catholicism,” such as the
separation of church and state, or his preference for a papacy relieved of the
temporal duties that fell to the Church in Italy. He died on November 21, 1861. On all fronts Lacordaire had championed
liberty, with one object deliberately pursued: the reconciliation of the Church
and the modern world as it issued from the French Revolution of 1789. He judged this world, and rightly, to be the
world of the future.”
10.
St. Dominic: "As the Letter to the Romans puts
it, 'If the root is holy, so are the branches.' St. Dominic is the 'Patriarch'
of whom Gregory IX spoke in the bull of canonization, who would 'beget',
according to the expression of St. Paul to the Corinthians, 'a great number of
sons devoting themselves with wonderful zeal to an evangelical ministry.' In this text of July 3, 1234, the Pope drew a
parallel between Dominic and the prophets, predecessors of the Founder of the
Preachers. After eight centuries of
Dominican life, with its glories and trials, we can see how the paternal figure
of St. Dominic contains in germ different types of holiness that have been
actualized in the course of history."
I
hope you enjoyed this and got to understand the spirituality of the Order of
Preachers, an order I am very close to.
