Daily word, 08 Aug 19

St. Dominic, Memorial (08 Aug 2019)

Nm 20. 1-13; Ps 95; Mt 16. 13-23

Homily of Fr. Paul Panaretos, S.J., 8-day directed retreat

“Holy Lives and Practical Charity”

“If he hadn’t taken a trip with his bishop, Dominic would probably have remained within the structure of contemplative life…” so began a brief summary¹ of St. Dominic. A line from the responsorial is apt for the founder of the order of men and women, which bears his name: When you…hear God’s voice: Harden not your hearts.

Impenetrable hearts often have deaf ears for companions. Hard-hearted ones resist reality and the way God works in it. On that “trip with his bishop” Dominic noticed some who lived from a distorted view of reality.

Their trip took them to Spain’s home territory of the Albigensians. They lived a heresy with several earlier incarnations. They considered all material things evil. You can imagine the implications: sacraments, which employ things, were evil; the body, which involves procreation, was evil; so was healthy eating. Their behavior flowed from their belief: the Albigensians did not accept a good God created a world marred by pain and suffering—though God intervened early to free people of oppression and nourish them in their flight; and the son of God suffer[ed] greatly…[was] killed and on the third day…raised. Purists—Albigensians called themselves the Pure—purists in any age uneasily face reality and fret at being real.

St. Dominic wanted to curb and correct this distorted view of God, the world and people. But how? Preachers came and went, but many “traveled with horse and retinues, stayed at the best inns and had servants.”² The Pure, of course, and others rejected them. So Dominic began to move about humbly with three Cistercian monks.

Cistercians, more often called Trappists, empha-sized manual labor to support themselves. Their preaching effort in imitation of the apostles led to the Order of Preachers. Its members seek to keep alive Dominic’s ideal: “to pass on the fruits of contemplation.”³ It is one way to live the vocation of baptismal priesthood by which we witness to Christ⁴ by holy lives and practical charity.⁵

St. Ignatius of Loyola, born 270 years after Dominic had died, was very fond of him. St. Ignatius learned contemplation fuels Christian action. Long before Ignatius and before his contemporaries⁶ coined the phrase “contemplatives in action,” St. Dominic lived it. Many of us feel called to live it, too. Our annual retreats assure us of our triune God’s closeness; through them God invites us to resume our daily routines by living the fruits God offers us. 

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1. Saint of the Day, 08 Aug at AmericanCatholic.org.
2. Ibid.
3. The meaning of Contemplata aliis tradere, the Dominican motto.
4. Constitution on the Church, 10. Second Vatican Council.
5. Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1273.
6. Jerome Nadal, S.J., gave particular emphasis to this phrase in his recollection of St. Ignatius.

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Wiki-image: St. Dominic. PD-US; St. Ignatius Statue, Guelph, photo by PDP