Image of Sister talking on the Native Soil podcast.
Dominican Life, Marbury History

“Native Soil” Interview with Sister

“The ground beneath our feet. The soil on which our homes are built. The place where God has called us.” This is the theme of Native Soil, the podcast of our local archdiocesan Vocation Director, Fr. Victor Ingalls. Recently Fr. Victor interviewed our Sister Mary Jordan, discussing our Dominican charism and our monastery’s particular history, and how Sister herself ended up following God’s call to be a Dominican nun here in Marbury.

For those who wish to learn more about our monastery’s history, we recommend the video on our Marbury Foundation page.

For those who are considering a religious vocation and wondering what is the next step, we recommend looking around on this website, especially at our Vocation Letters series and our advice on Preparing for Religious Life. If what you see attracts you, the next step is to contact us and come for a vocation visit.

Dominican Nuns sing Dominican Chant at Mass
Dominican Life, Liturgy

What is Dominican Chant, and Why Do We Sing It?

Many friends of our community, or those who find us online, know that as nuns we give ourselves completely to God in a life of prayer. Yet what exactly we are doing in our life of prayer is often less clear!

If you attend Holy Mass in our chapel, or happen to come make a visit to the Blessed Sacrament at a time when we were praying the Divine Office, you would realize that a good part of our prayer is expressed through singing the liturgy in chant — in fact, Dominican chant.

Dominican Chant Responsory for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady:

Because of truth, and meekness and justice; and Your right hand shall conduct You wonderfully. Verse: Hear, O daughter, and see, and incline your ear, for the king has greatly desired your beauty. – Ps. 44, 5.11.

What Is Dominican Chant?

Most people have a general idea of Gregorian chant, that solemn, somewhat ethereal style of singing Latin liturgical texts that raises the soul to God. Dominican chant is the special Dominican variety of the ancient Gregorian chant, standardized in the mid-1200’s under Blessed Humbert of Romans, the fifth Master of the Order.

When our Holy Father St. Dominic founded the Order of Preachers in the early 1200’s, he kept the community celebration of the liturgy as a central part of the spiritual life of his new Order. While earlier monks had elaborated the chants of the liturgy to great length, the Dominican friars preferred more succinct musical settings in order to set aside additional time for study at the service of their preaching for the salvation of souls.

Our Dominican chant is less ethereal, perhaps, but nonetheless beautiful and elevating. The Dominicans are devoted to contemplating and preaching the Word of God for the salvation of souls, and chanting the Scriptural texts is like lectio divina in song.

Dominican Chant Offertory for the feast of the Nativity of Our Lady:

For you are happy, O holy virgin Mary,
and most worthy of all praise, because from you arose
the Sun of Justice, Christ our Lord.

The Liturgy in Our Life (or, Why we Sing Dominican Chant)

The solemn celebration of the liturgy is the heart of our life as Dominican nuns, and the chief source of its unity. The most important action of our life each day take place in the liturgy: offering ourselves to God in union with Christ in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and continuing this praise, intercession, and thanksgiving throughout the day in the Liturgy of the Hours. (The Liturgy of the Hours, also known as the Divine Office, consists of Psalms, hymns, Scripture passages, and other chants, which vary according to the day and the liturgical season.) Seven times each day, we return to our monastery chapel to pray the liturgy.

We find that singing our traditional Dominican chant throughout these liturgical celebrations intensifies the unifying effect of the liturgy in our life. As Dominicans, we know that our exterior practices both express and affect our interior devotion. Chant itself, as a musical style, is specifically ordered towards prayer. Singing chant day after day forms our souls in greater stillness and receptivity to the Word of God, mysteriously opening up interior space to contemplate and enter more deeply into the richness of the living Word.

This liturgical life flows into our personal lectio divina, as well as into our devotional life of processions and novenas. Even at recreation, how often will a Sister remark on some connection in the liturgy to the saint of the day, the readings at Mass, or the text or music of the chant itself. “Did you notice the repetition of the text Os justi? Those early monks who elaborated these chants just loved thinking about the ‘just man’ whose mouth continually murmured the Word of God!”

Today’s Examples, and More Dominican Chant

Have you heard chant at Mass recently? Although most parishes use hymns for Sunday Mass, it is still true in the Church today that there are proper Latin chants assigned for each Mass for the Entrance, Responsory (instead of the Responsorial Psalm as usually sung), Alleluia, Offertory, and Communion. The two examples of chant that we shared above (which we also sang at Mass today) are both from the proper chants for the feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

Would you like to listen to more Dominican chant? We only have a few samples of our singing online, but there are two Dominican friars who host an OPChant YouTube channel with recordings of hours of chant.

Their “Introducing OPChant” video by EWTN is also very good.

The only thing better than listening to Dominican chant is singing it, and living a contemplative monastic life dedicated to the ultimate goal of chant: bringing us all into union with God. If you are a young woman drawn to this life immersed, like Our Lady, in the Word of God, please feel free to contact us.

Vocation Letter cartoon depicting Dominican nun inside her enclosure wall.
Enlosure, Vocation Letters

Vocation Letters: Embracing Enclosure

Why would a young woman embrace enclosure? Our fictional novice Sister Mary Rosaria reflects on the meaning of the cloistered life in this entry in our Vocation Letter series.

Vocation Letter cartoon depicting Dominican nun inside her enclosure wall.

Ave + Maria

Dear Dad,

Greetings on this feast of St. Augustine! Today is “Enclosure Day” for us–the day that the boundaries of our monastic enclosure were officially blessed, and our Mother Foundresses rejoiced in being able to again embrace their cloistered life of prayer a mere ten days after arriving to found our monastery here in Marbury, Alabama.

I was reflecting on enclosure, after living in the monastery for over four years now.  Many people find it hard to understand why a young woman would choose to give up “everything life has to offer” and commit to spending the rest of her days in this one place, separated by walls and grilles from the rest of the world.

The simplest explanation of enclosure is simply love.  We nuns are set apart in this sacred space to belong exclusively to God, making a free response of love to the One Who has called us out of love.  Everyone in the entire world is called to give themselves to God in love, but not everyone is called to this particular way of life with its radical separation and witness to God’s primacy in all things.  When I entered the monastery, I was certainly motivated by loving God and wanting to do His will, but as I have grown in this vocation, I have experienced more and more the truth of what our Constitutions say: “This hidden life should open their minds to the breadth and height and depth of the love of God who sent his Son so that the whole world might be saved through him.”

The cloister keeps outside the empty preoccupations and distractions of the world, so that inside the monastery—and inside our hearts—we can have the environment of simplicity, order, silence and peace that most readily prepares us to seek God and respond to Him in true freedom.  Enclosure is like the physical aspect of silence; our Constitutions even link them together in a particularly Dominican way: “The purpose of all regular observance, especially enclosure and silence, is that the Word of God may dwell abundantly in the monastery.”  Even looking back on the four (short!) years I have been here, I can see how the interior noise I brought with me has gradually decreased, and more space opened up for God and His Word that we receive in so many ways here in the monastery.

So to those who think it a special privilege when we “get” to leave the enclosure for legitimate reasons, I would say, no; we embrace our enclosure and consider it a privilege that we are set apart for God and “get” to stay inside our cloister!  What God promises to give us in this cloistered contemplative life—Himself—is worth more than anything the world could have to offer.

Please give my love to Mom and the rest of the family! Even embracing enclosure, I still love my family very much and look forward to your visit in just a few weeks!

With love and prayers in Our Lady,

Sister Mary Rosaria

P.S. You can read more about the meaning of enclosure in the Vatican document Verbi Sponsa (1999), and about the current legislation in Chapter Three of Cor Orans (2018) (specifically, sections IV and V).

Join us for the Novena for the Nativity of Our Lady – starting August 30

Each year we look forward to the lovely feast of Our Lady’s Birthday on September 8. We invite you to join us for this Novena which begins August 30. Our Lady gave us the greatest gift — her Son, Jesus Christ. Let us prepare for her birthday with devout prayer in her honor.

Header for the conclusion of the 15 Tuesdays with St. Dominic as origin of the Dominican tree of saints.
Dominican Saints, Newsletters

Feast of St. Dominic: Conclusion and Newsletter

Today we conclude the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic with a reflection on St. Dominic’s spiritual paternity. We also invite you to read our St. Dominic’s Feast Day Newsletter (PDF).

Thank you for joining us over these fifteen weeks! These meditations have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections with you, and also with each other here in the monastery during this 800th Jubilee of the death of St. Dominic. If these have been helpful to you, please take a moment and let us know. Know of our prayers for a most blessed feast of our Holy Father St. Dominic!

Header for the conclusion of the 15 Tuesdays with St. Dominic as origin of the Dominican tree of saints.

St. Dominic’s Spiritual Paternity

For the past fifteen weeks we have been reflecting on the life and virtues of our Holy Father St. Dominic as refracted through the mysteries of the Rosary. As founder, St. Dominic bequeathed his charism and virtues to all those God called, through his intercession, to form the body of his Dominican family down through the centuries. As Dominican nuns of the Perpetual Rosary tradition, “engrafted on the glorious Dominican tree,” we take our place with our fellow Dominicans and Dominican saints and blesseds, with great gratitude to God for all the graces we have received through our Dominican vocation.

Every year on the anniversary of departed brothers and sisters of the Order, we read in the Divine Office the account of St. Dominic’s death given by the witnesses at his canonization. (Even his death is a model, in a sense, for ours.) In this account there are several events which speak tellingly of the Saint’s spiritual paternity.

First, as a father, St. Dominic gave himself fully to the mission of the Order. When he arrived in Bologna the day before his death, he spent all his time and stayed up late at night speaking with the local prior about the affairs of the Order, which was then still newly founded, growing, and being formed. When the prior urged him to go to bed, since he himself was tired and wanted to get some rest, St. Dominic refused, going instead to the church as usual to spend the night in prayer. St. Dominic’s zeal for the salvation of souls, and his inspiration to found this Order in the Church to pursue that end by preaching the Truth, came from his total dedication to God. He gave himself fully, selflessly.

Second, St. Dominic saw his paternal authority at the service of the Order. The next day, when the Saint became increasingly ill, the brethren carried him to another church on higher ground, in hopes that the location would be more conducive to his health. If the saint died there, claimed the monk who was rector of that church, he would have to be buried there too! When St. Dominic was told this, he replied, “God forbid that I should be buried anywhere except under the feet of my brethren.  Take me outside that I may die on the way and you may bury me in our church.” Under the feet of the brethren: even on his deathbed, St. Dominic couldn’t imagine himself anywhere except in the communion of the Order, in the midst of the brethren. He knew how to exercise authority as Master of the Order, how to command, how to organize, how to rebuke when necessary, but always at the service of the Order. He even wanted to relinquish his office as Master of the Order, to go and preach to the Cumins, but when the brethren at the first General Chapter refused, he obediently resumed his authority. He ruled to serve.

Image of the death of St. Dominic by Fra Angelico, with the two ladders with angels in the background.

Third, St. Dominic’s headship of the Order is from God, an image of Christ’s headship of the Church. Back at the priory in Bologna, the brethren prepared themselves for the solemn commendation of St. Dominic’s soul. The prior said to him, “’Father, you know that you are leaving us desolate and sad.  Remember us and pray to the Lord for us.’  And the blessed brother Dominic lifted his hands to heaven and said: ‘Holy Father, you know that I have gladly persevered in your will, and I have watched over and kept those whom you gave me.  I commend them to you.  Watch over them and keep them.’” These words, paralleling the words of Christ at the Last Supper in the Gospel of John, show that the brethren and sisters of the Order were given him by God. This is true not only of those brethren gathered sorrowfully around the saint’s deathbed, but of all of us who have been called by God to share in St. Dominic’s charism, to devote our lives to the holy preaching, and to walk the path of love and knowledge of God in the footsteps and image of our holy Father. St. Dominic receives his spiritual paternity from the Father.

Finally, St. Dominic continues to exercise his paternity from heaven. Most dear to Dominican hearts are the consoling words our holy Father spoke in answer to the brethren when they asked about themselves. Dominic replied: “I shall be more useful to you and more fruitful after my death than I was in my life.” Thus the traditional Dominican antiphon in honor of this promise of our Holy Father: O spem miram, O wonderful hope, which you gave to those who wept for you at the hour of your death, promising after your departure, to be helpful to your brethren. R: Fulfill, O Father, what you have said, and help us by your prayers. As we love and reverence our Holy Father St. Dominic here on earth, we are confident that he loves and intercedes for us in heaven.

Image of the glory of St. Dominic in heaven by Guido Reni.

On Friday, August 6th, 1221, around 6:00 p.m, St. Dominic said to the prior and the brethren: “Begin.”  “They began the office for the solemn commendation of his soul and, as the witness believes, the blessed brother Dominic said the office with them because his lips were moving.  The brethren firmly believe that he breathed his last while they were saying the words: ‘Come to his help, saints of God.  Hasten to receive his soul, angels of the Lord and offer him to God the Most High.’”

Today, on his liturgical feast day in 2021, we celebrate the 800th Jubilee of St. Dominic’s death, his Dies Natalis or heavenly birthday. For us in the communion of the Order, and we hope for all of you who have been following this series and have been touched in some way by the grace of St. Dominic, it is an occasion of great joy and thanksgiving for all the graces God has bestowed on us through our Holy Father. May this Jubilee Year continue to be a source of grace for us all to draw closer to Jesus and Mary through the intercession of St. Dominic.

St. Dominic’s Feast Day Newsletter 2021

You can also read our St. Dominic’s Feast Day Newsletter (PDF).

15 Tuesdays in Review

Header for 1st Tuesday with painting of the Annunciation with St. Dominic added.
Header for 2st Tuesday with painting of the Visitation with St. Dominic added.
Header for 3rd Tuesday with painting of the Nativity with St. Dominic added.
Header for 4rd Tuesday with painting of the Presentation in the Temple with St. Dominic added.
Header for 5th Tuesday with painting of the Finding of the Child Jesus in the Temple with St. Dominic added.
Header for 6th Tuesday with painting of the Agony in the Garden with St. Dominic added.
Header for 7th Tuesday with painting of the Scourging at the Pillar with St. Dominic added.
Header for 8th Tuesday with painting of the Crowning with Thorns with St. Dominic added.
Header for 8th Tuesday with Murillo's painting of Christ carrying the Cross with St. Dominic added.
Header for 9th Tuesday with Jesus Crucified with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.
Header for 11th Tuesday with the Risen Lord with St. Dominic added.
Header for 12th Tuesday with Jesus ascending into heaven with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.
Header for 13th Tuesday with the image of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles with St. Dominic looking on.
Header for 14th Tuesday with the image of Fra Angelico's Dormition/Assumption with St. Dominic looking on.
Header for 15th Tuesday with the image of Our Lady's Coronation by Ghirlandaio with St. Dominic looking on.
Header for 15th Tuesday with the image of Our Lady's Coronation by Ghirlandaio with St. Dominic looking on.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

15th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this fifteenth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers the Salve Regina and Our Lady’s Queenship over the Order of Preachers. Next week we will conclude this series with a reflection on the feast of St. Dominic.

If you are joining us now at the last of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! These fifteen weeks have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections, which you can read at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic.

Header for 15th Tuesday with the image of Our Lady's Coronation by Ghirlandaio with St. Dominic looking on.

Salve, Regina: The Queenship of Mary and the Dominican Order

Salve, Regína!

Salve, Regína!  The Dominican Order’s famous love for this Marian antiphon bespeaks a special devotion to the Queenship of her whom it honors.  Although the Order’s two ancient customs concerning the Salve, of solemnly chanting it during a Community procession at the end of Compline (Night Prayer) and of chanting it also at the bedside of a dying Dominican, were not instituted until after Saint Dominic’s death, he certainly would have known and loved this antiphon.  The Order’s medieval origins and knightly character partially explain its deep devotion to Our Lady as Queen.  More importantly, the early friars and nuns of the Order were convinced, by daily experience as well as by miraculous revelations, of Mary’s constant intervention on behalf of the Order.  They gloried in her special patronage and attributed her with founding, clothing, and protecting the Order. 

Virgo Prædicánda

There is a deeper reason why the mystery of Our Lady’s Coronation and Queenship should resonate with Dominicans.  Mary personifies all the favorite themes of Dominican life, study, and preaching.  Who could better initiate a Dominican soul into the secrets of the Incarnate Word than the woman whose interior life consisted in “pondering in her heart” all the words and deeds of Jesus?  From whom will the preacher learn how to “contemplate, and give to others the things contemplated,” if not from her who bore Jesus in Her womb, so that the world might receive its Savior through her?  The Order itself takes its motto, “To praise, to bless, and to preach” the Triune God, from the Preface of Our Lady, finding the inspiration of its life and mission in contemplating the mighty works of God in Mary.  In Mary, the life of virtue, the efficacy of grace, and union with Christ are exemplified more gloriously than in anyone else. All these themes of Dominican life, study, and preaching converge on the goal of beatitude: the happiness which all men desire, achieved at last by the grace of God Who alone can satisfy man’s heart.  It is precisely in Our Lady’s Coronation that grace and glory find, literally, their crown.  Every dignity of nature and grace which was hers, is here revealed in its final breathtaking splendor.  The full transformation, body and soul, for which every human person is created, is accomplished in Mary to the highest degree possible. 

For the Order of Preachers, then, Mary is eminently the Virgo Praedicánda, not merely the Virgin “most renowned,” but “to be preached.”  She is the glorious Virgin Mother whose glory, mercy, and beauty deserve to be extolled with all the eloquence that devoted hearts and tongues can muster.  And Mary is not at all an inert object, held up primarily for admiration.  She reinforces her Preachers’ efforts for the salvation of souls with her efficacious mediation, the power and universal scope of which abundantly justify her title of Queen.  It is the privilege of every Dominican, then, to experience with particular intensity what the entire Church recognizes: “Mary, because she has entered intimately into the history of salvation, in a certain sense gathers up in her own person the great truths of the faith and awakens their resonance when she is the object of preaching and veneration; she summons the faithful to her Son, to his sacrifice and to the Father’s love” (Lumen Gentium, 65).

Image of the vision of St. Dominic of all the Dominicans in heaven under Our Lady's mantle.
These hand-painted curtains are used for special Dominican feasts at the monastery.

Under Her Mantle

There is a final reason why Dominicans should love to ponder the mystery of Our Lady’s Coronation.  It is that they hope to share her glory themselves.  St. Louis de Montfort tells us that the true devotee of Our Lady will share in her own virtues and graces because of the mutual generosity between them.  A Dominican spiritual writer similarly observes that deep, childlike dependence on Our Lady enables us to share in her own contemplative life.  If heavenly glory is the flowering of the life of grace, then the Dominican who lives in intimate relations with his Queen here below can rightly hope to enjoy a continuation of that relationship in heaven. 

This was symbolically shown to Saint Dominic in his famous vision of heaven, in which he saw religious of every other Order but his own.  When at Jesus’ invitation our Holy Father asked to see his own brethren, Our Lord said, “I have given your Order to My Mother’s care.”  Then Our Lady drew back her mantle, which seemed large enough to enclose almost all of heaven, and showed him a great host of his brethren beneath it.

Every Dominican hopes, under Our Lady’s patronage, to obtain the eternal life Jesus promised to those who leave everything to follow Him.  May all of us, too, hope to obtain through her the salvation Jesus promised. “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us, that we may be made worthy of the promises of Christ.”  Amen.

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:

Header for 14th Tuesday with the image of Our Lady's Dormition with St. Dominic looking on.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

14th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this fourteenth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers the apostles, the Assumption of Our Lady, and parallels in the life of St. Dominic.

If you are joining us now towards the end of 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! These fifteen weeks have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections, which you can read at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic.

Header for 14th Tuesday with the image of Fra Angelico's Dormition/Assumption with St. Dominic looking on.

Going forth from Our Lady

There is nothing quite like Our Lady’s smile. It was the feast of the Assumption in 1217, Fanjeaux, France, when St. Dominic and his fledgling group of Friars Preachers gathered together for the sacred liturgy. Afterwards, still robed in his priestly vestments, St. Dominic made the historic announcement. He was sending them out, their band was to be dispersed to the intellectual centers of the modern world to study, preach and spread the Order. Hoarded grain rots, so St. Dominic threw his grain to the four winds and within a very short time, a rich harvest was his—hundreds of friars preachers carrying the holy preaching all over the known world. Within six months, the Dominicans had houses at Toulouse, the capital of heresy; at Paris and Bologna, the two great university centers of Europe; and at Rome, the center of Christendom—not to mention their success in Spain as well. This was just the beginning of the rapid growth of those early years of the Order. Our Lady truly smiled upon her Friars Preachers from the glorious heavenly places.

Our Lady’s Assumption is actually a particularly apostolic mystery of the Rosary.  A number of early patristic homilies on Mary’s Dormition speak of the tradition that all twelve apostles were miraculously gathered together to be present for the sacred passing of the Mother of the Lord, before her body was also assumed to join her soul in heaven. In life and in death, the apostles gathered around her and were blessed by her presence, her wisdom and her prayers. The early Dominicans also gathered around the Blessed Virgin, and received great help and support in their apostolic mission. The Lives of the Brethren, a charming collection of stories from the early days of the Order, records the dynamism of her solicitude and constancy in assisting St. Dominic and the early friars in all their needs as they had recourse to her.

As the first Order in the Church to focus intentionally on apostolic preaching, one of the unique aspects of the Order of Preachers was the interesting blend of contemplative and active aspects of the way of life.  Part of the genius of this arrangement is the resulting natural tension that keeps both in balance. On the one hand, Dominicans have a rich liturgical life and focus of prayerful listening to the Word, especially the interior preaching of the Holy Spirit, and on the other, the drive and zeal for souls that moves the preacher to generosity in the apostolic works of preaching and teaching the Truth for the glory of God and salvation of souls. Prayer and preaching were at the heart of the early Church, and also especially close to the heart of St. Dominic when he set up the Order to respond to the needs of the Church in his day.

Painting of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from Our Lady, painted by Sr. Plautilla Nelli, a Dominican nun in Renaissance Florence.
Painting of St. Dominic receiving the Rosary from Our Lady, painted by Sister Plautilla Nelli (1524–1588), a Dominican nun in Renaissance Florence.

Our Lady was entrusted in a special way to the Beloved Disciple, St. John at the foot of the cross, and anyone who has read his gospel can see the richness that was his as a contemplative preacher. No doubt the close contact with Our Lady during the time from the Crucifixion up to her Assumption into heaven, would have been a source of untold graces. The Friars Preachers were called to be like the Beloved Disciple and take Our Lady and her contemplation of the mysteries of her Son (the Rosary!) into their hearts and into their way of life, to learn from her as the contemplative par excellence, the way St. John did when he contemplated and preached the gospel in word and deed.

As contemplative nuns of the Order, we are dedicated to this work of prayer and intercession for the apostolic ventures of our friars and that of the whole Church. We seek the Queen of Heaven’s intercession that the Word sown throughout the world may be bear abundant fruit. As we ponder the mystery of Our Lady’s glorious Assumption, we join with St. Dominic remembering with great gratitude how he began his first great sending out of the brethren on Our Lady’s feast under her motherly smile.

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:

Header for 13th Tuesday with the image of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles with St. Dominic looking on.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

13th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this thirteenth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers the Gifts and Fruits of the Holy Spirit in the life of St. Dominic.

If you are joining us now towards the end of 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! These fifteen weeks have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections, which you can read at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic.

Header for 13th Tuesday with the image of the descent of the Holy Spirit on Our Lady and the Apostles with St. Dominic looking on.

The Gifts of the Holy Spirit

When Jesus ascended to Heaven, He promised to send the Holy Spirit, the Comforter, to enlighten and strengthen the Apostles. At Pentecost this promise was fulfilled in the Descent of the Holy Spirit pouring out upon them His Gifts. In the Sacrament of Confirmation we too receive the Gifts of the Holy Spirit through the hands of the Apostle’s successors, our Bishops. These Gifts are: Wisdom, Understanding, Counsel, Fortitude, Knowledge, Piety, and Fear of the Lord.

According to the Baltimore Catechism, we receive the gift of Fear of the Lord to fill us with a dread of sin, that is, fear of offending so good a Father. We receive the gift of Piety to make us love God as a Father, and obey Him because we love Him. We receive the gift of Knowledge to enable us to discover the will of God in all things. We receive the gift of Fortitude to strengthen us to do the will of God in all things. We receive the gift of Counsel to warn us of the deceits of the devil, and of the dangers to salvation. We receive the gift of Understanding to enable us to know more clearly the mysteries of faith. We receive the gift of Wisdom to give us a relish for the things of God, and to direct our whole life and all our actions to His honor and glory.

It is the sweet study to seek in the life of St. Dominic the ways in which he was guided and strengthened by the Holy Spirit. From his childhood, like many saints, St. Dominic was singularly graced with gifts of Piety and Fear of the Lord, especially drawn to prayer and with a delicate sensitivity to all that might offend God. He had excellent examples in his saintly parents and his brother, Bl. Mannes, who was already a priest when St. Dominic was young. He continued to grow in grace with God and man and in his young adulthood, showing forth striking examples of Fortitude and Knowledge. We see in St. Dominic the Holy Spirit’s strength to overcome obstacles of all sorts and to discern and follow the will of God, alive and at work, as he pursued his holy vocation, first as a priestly canon at Osma and then as founder of the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.

Image of St. Dominic

Attentive to Our Lady, Spouse of the Holy Spirit, St. Dominic especially embraced and preached the Rosary, a powerful instrument inspiring in souls docility and openness to the movements of the Spirit. The Gifts of Counsel and Understanding were extremely active in his preaching to convert those who had lost their way in the error of heresy. With these he shepherded numerous souls to return to the fold. But above all, the crowning gift of the Spirit, Wisdom, shone forth like a star on St. Dominic’s brow. He was strongly characterized by his all-consuming love of God, always speaking with God or of God.  The contemplative gift of Wisdom directed all things to God, and fired his great zeal for God’s honor and the salvation of souls. St. Dominic was aflame with desire to love and please God, and to see Him greatly loved by souls everywhere.

The Fruits of the Holy Spirit

With the Gifts we also receive the Fruits of the Holy Spirit: Charity, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, Goodness, Long Suffering, Gentleness, Faithfulness, Modesty and Chastity. St. Dominic was known as the “Joyful Friar” singing the praises of God as he trudged along the roads, showing kindness to fellow Pilgrims, enduring rejection and opposition with patience, everywhere and in all circumstances giving to souls in charity, modesty and chastity the riches of the love for God that filled his own heart. Today these same blessings are bestowed through the intercession of St. Dominic.

When someone gives a gift, the surest response of gratitude from the one who receives it is to use the gift! So too, the Holy Spirit is pleased when we make daily efforts to put into practice those Gifts with which He has blessed us.

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:

Header for 12th Tuesday with Jesus ascending into heaven with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

12th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this twelfth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers the Ascension of Our Lord and relates it to St. Dominic’s yearning for and being received into heaven.

If you are joining us now towards the end of 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! These fifteen weeks have been a delightful opportunity for us to share our reflections, which you can read at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic.

Header for 12th Tuesday with Jesus ascending into heaven with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.

Yearning for Heaven

Meditating on the 2nd Glorious Mystery of the Rosary, our hearts are full of joy and yearning.  Why joy?  Because the Lord by His death and Resurrection has made it possible for us to enter heaven, opening the door of heaven whose entrance was closed to us by the sin of our first parents.  For the forty days after His Resurrection, Christ instructed His apostles, giving them laws and ordinances for His Mystical Body, the Church.  He raised His hands and blessed them as He ascended into heaven where He sits at the right hand of the Father.

Image of the death of St. Dominic by Fra Angelico, with the two ladders with angels in the background.

Blessed Guala, an early Dominican friar, had a vision of St. Dominic on the day of the Saint’s death.  “Having prayed for St. Dominic on the 6th of August, A.D. 1221, believing him to be still lying sick at Bologna, Blessed Guala fell asleep, leaning against the belfry of the church, and he seemed to see two ladders let down from an opening in the sky above him.  At the top of one stood our Divine Lord, and His Blessed Mother was at the summit of the other.  Angels were going up and down the ladders, and at their foot was seated one clothed in the habit of the Order, but his face was covered with his hood, in the manner in which the Friars were wont to cover the face of the dead when carried out for burial.  The ladders were drawn up into heaven, and he saw the unknown Friar received into the company of angels, surrounded by dazzling glory, and borne to the very feet of Jesus.”  When he journeyed to Bologna he learned, of course, that this friar was St. Dominic himself. (From Short Lives of the Dominican Saints by a Sister of the Congregation of St. Catharine of Siena, 1901.)

During his life, St. Dominic yearned for heaven.  And he brought this to fruition by his preaching and the example of his life.  Hoping to join our Holy Father one day in heaven we earnestly strive with all our might with Our Lady’s prayers to live according to the laws and ordinances of the new life Jesus gave us.  May Our Lord fulfill our yearning by bringing us also through the open doors of heaven to join Him and all the saints in joy and peace forever.

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:

Header for 11th Tuesday with the Risen Lord with St. Dominic added.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

11th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this eleventh Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers St. Dominic as Light of the Church, Lumen Ecclesiae, in light of the Resurrection.

If you are joining us after the beginning of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! Fifteen weeks is a long time, and you can begin at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic through joining in.

Header for 11th Tuesday with the Risen Lord with St. Dominic added.

“May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.” —Prayer said by the priest while lighting the paschal candle from the newly blessed fire at the beginning of the Easter Vigil

It all started in darkness. A voice and a light pierce the blackness: “Lumen Christi!” Thrice this solemn chant sounds as the paschal candle advances through the otherwise lightless church. The hushed congregation waits in almost breathless anticipation as the light advances and the holy Easter fire is passed from taper to taper until the whole church is bright with the first light of Easter joy. Thus begins the solemn liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil, recalling how it all started when Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The deathly darkness of the tomb fled before the bright light of Unconquerable Life…truly Jesus has risen, alleluia!

O Lumen! St. Dominic’s life too started in the darkness of obscurity, with a loving family, a beautiful and simple devotion to Our Lord and Our Lady from his youth, and then his years of education and serving as a priestly canon at the cathedral in Osma. But even from his earliest days, we have the testimony of his mother, Blessed Jane, who saw glimpses of the flame that would enlighten the whole world in her little son. According to tradition, before she conceived St. Dominic, she had a dream that she would have a son, represented by a dog with a torch in his mouth that ran across the whole world setting it on fire. This image becaume an artistic symbol of St. Dominic, representing the marvelous affect that his preaching and that of his Order would have on the whole world, darkened by the clouds of error and the confusion of pernicious heresy.

Painting of St. Dominic with a dog holding a torch at his feet, by Claudio Coello
Click here to see the “hounds of the Lord” at work in the Via Veritatis, the Way of Truth.

Veritas. Truth. It is the motto of the Dominican Order from the earliest days. In a unique and special way, St. Dominic was called and commissioned by the Church as a preacher of Truth. He received the invitation and generously responded to the call and need of his time, dedicating all that he had with unmatched zeal to spread the light of Truth among those “who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” St. Dominic preached the gospel of truth with his words and with his life, becoming so likened to Christ that in one of St. Catharine of Siena’s visions, God the Father compared Jesus and St. Dominic in these words:

“Beloved Daughter, I have begotten these two Sons: one by nature, the other by a sweet and tender adoption.” As Catharine was amazed at a comparison so elevated, which rendered equal so to speak, a saint with Jesus Christ—he who uttered these surprising words, explained them himself: “My Son engendered by nature from all eternity, when he assumed human nature, obeyed me in all things perfectly, until his death. Dominic, my son by adoption, from his birth until the last moment of his life, followed my will in all things. My Son by nature, who is the eternal Word from my mouth, preached publicly to the world whatever I charged him to say, and he rendered testimony to the Truth as he himself declared to Pilate. My adopted son Dominic also preached to the world the verity of my words; he spoke to heretics and to Catholics, not only personally but by others. His preaching continued in his successors, he still preaches and will always preach. My Son by nature sent his disciples, my son by adoption sent his religious; my Son by nature is my Word, my son by adoption is the herald, the minister of my Word. Therefore, I have given a quite particular intelligence of my words to him and to his religious with fidelity to follow them. My Son by nature did all things in order to promote by his teaching and his example the salvation of souls. Dominic my son by adoption, used all his endeavors to draw souls from vice and error. The salvation of the neighbor was his principal thought in the establishment and development of his Order. Hence, I have compared him to my Son by nature, whose life he imitated, and thou seest that even his body resembles the sacred Body of my divine Son. (The Life of St. Catharine of Siena by Blessed Raymond of Capua, O.P.)

Through imitation, contemplation and proclamation of the Word of Truth, St. Dominic became the Lumen Ecclesiae, the Light of the Church (as the special antiphon in his honor so aptly begins), and the darkness of error fled before the light of Truth that he preached so zealously. The poetic words invite our meditation, as we consider our Holy Father St. Dominic as a conduit of Jesus Himself especially as the Light and Truth.

It all started in darkness. But the Son rose triumphant, bringing abundant life and glorious light that dispels the darkness of hearts and minds in every corner of our world. As in the solemn beginnings of the Easter Vigil, the Easter fire is extended to each of us. Let us ask for the grace to be open and receive the bright light of Truth, to be like St. Dominic, giving ourselves generously to living as light in a world that desperately needs and desires Truth Himself!

Addendum: The O Lumen

O lumen Ecclesiae, Doctor veritatis,
Rosa patientiae, Ebur castitatis,
Aquam sapientiae, Propinasti gratis,
Praedicator gratiae, nos junge beatis.

Light of the Church, Teacher of Truth,
Rose of patience, Ivory of chastity.
You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom.
Preacher of grace, unite us with the blessed.

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past:

Header for 10th Tuesday with Jesus Crucified with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.
Dominican Saints, Prayers

10th Tuesday in honor of St. Dominic

On this tenth Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers how St. Dominic’s love and devotion to Christ Crucified, and how He should also be the treasure of our hearts.

If you are joining us after the beginning of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! Fifteen weeks is a long time, and you can begin at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic through joining in.

Header for 9th Tuesday with Jesus Crucified with St. Dominic and Our Lady looking on.

Christ Crucified Inscribed in our Hearts

“Let Christ, Who was fastened to the Cross for all, be fast-knit to their hearts.”  In these words our Constitutions exhort us to a constant loving remembrance of Our Lord’s Passion and Death.   

Our Holy Father Saint Dominic was outstanding in his devout meditation on the mysteries of the life of Christ, especially His Passion.  The brethren remembered how he used to pray before the Crucifix of the Altar or Chapter Hall, his gaze fixed upon the Crucified One with perfect attention, genuflecting again and again.  His method of prayer while he traveled was similar.  He would say to his companion, “Let us think of Our Savior,” and withdraw some distance from the brother.  Then he gave himself entirely to meditation as he walked, repeatedly fortifying himself with the Sign of the Cross.  The brethren thought that it was while praying in this way that he obtained his extraordinary penetration into the mysteries of Sacred Scripture, an intimate acquaintance with the Holy Spirit, and an inflamed charity. 

Painting of the Crucifixion with Our Lady, St. Mary Magdalen, and St. Dominic by Fra Angelico.

We see how our Holy Father’s devotion to the Passion of Christ was not only intellectual, in his mind, but also affective, transforming his heart.  Saint Dominic’s holiest children have always counted this ardent devotion to Jesus Crucified a precious part of their Dominican heritage.  Saint Thomas Aquinas wrote, “Meditating on matters pertaining to Christ’s humanity is the strongest incentive to love and consequently to devotion, leading us as a guiding hand….If anyone from a devout intention meditates on the suitableness of Christ’s Passion and Death, he will find such depth of wisdom, that certain things will always suggest more and greater things to every reflecting mind.”  Saint Catherine de Ricci, who from her childhood spent hours pondering the Crucifix, wrote, “Let us mark our foreheads with that sacred Blood, that by this sign we may… have competed and won the red and ruddy prize of victory, which is the Crucified Jesus, spattered with Blood and lifeless for the sake of love.” 

Let us imitate Saint Dominic and study from the book of charity, which is the book of the Cross.  Together with our saintly brothers and sisters, let us consider Jesus Crucified our greatest prize.  In union with Mary, who stood at the foot of the Cross, let us treasure every word and action of Jesus in our hearts, especially the greatest proof of His love, His sorrowful Passion and Death.  Then, where our treasure is, our hearts will also be. 

Additional Prayers

If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past: