Sunday, August 9, 2015 - Litany Lane Blog: Revivify, First Kings 19:4-8, Psalms 34:2-9 , John 6:41-51, Pope Francis's Catchesis, Hymn of the Week - On Eagle's Wings , Our Lady of Medjugorje's Monthly Message, Feast of Saint Dominic, Dominican Order, Basilica of Saint Domenico Bologna Italy, Mystical City of God Book 3 Chapter 2 - The Incarnation of the Son of God , Catholic Catechism - The Profession of Faith Chapter 3 - I Believe In The Holy Catholic Church: Article 9, RECHARGE: Heaven Speaks to Young Adults

Sunday,  August 9, 2015 - Litany Lane Blog:

Revivify, First Kings 19:4-8, Psalms 34:2-9 , John 6:41-51, Pope Francis's Catchesis, Hymn of the Week - On Eagle's Wings , Our Lady of Medjugorje's Monthly Message, Feast of Saint Dominic, Dominican Order, Basilica of Saint Domenico Bologna Italy, Mystical City of God Book 3 Chapter 2 - The Incarnation of the Son of God , Catholic Catechism - The Profession of Faith Chapter 3 - I Believe In The Holy Catholic Church: Article 9,  RECHARGE: Heaven Speaks to Young Adults

P.U.S.H. (Pray Until Serenity Happens). A remarkable way of producing solace, peace, patience, tranquility and of course resolution...God's always available 24/7. ~ Zarya Parx 2015

"Where there is a Will, With God, There is a Way", "There is always a ray of sunshine amongst the darkest Clouds, the name of that ray is Jesus" ~ Zarya Parx 2014

The world begins and ends everyday for someone.  We are all human. We all experience birth, life and death. We all have flaws but we also all have the gift of knowledge, reason and free will, make the most of these gifts. Life on earth is a stepping stone to our eternal home in Heaven. The Seven Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, wonder and awe (fear of the Lord) , counsel, knowledge, fortitude, and piety (reverence) and shun the seven Deadly sins: wrath, greed, sloth, pride, lust, envy, and gluttony...Its your choice whether to embrace the Gifts of the Holy Spirit rising towards eternal light or succumb to the Seven deadly sins and lost to eternal darkness. Material items, though needed for sustenance and survival on earth are of earthly value only. The only thing that passes from this earth to the Darkness, Purgatory or Heaven is our Soul...it's God's perpetual gift to us...Embrace it, treasure it, nurture it, protect it...~ Zarya Parx 2013

"Raise not a hand to another unless it is to offer in peace and goodwill." ~ Zarya Parx 2012

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Prayers for Today:  18th Sunday in Ordinary Time

Rosary - Glorious Mysteries

Divine Mercy Chaplet

Chaplet of Saint Michael the Archangel

Chaplet of the Most Precious Blood 

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Hymn of the Week

On Eagle's Wings

Composed  by Michael Joncas

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Available - Michael Joncas's On Eagle's Wings [Full Album]
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**Copyright Disclaimer - Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act of 1976, allowance is made for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research under the term "fair use", which is a use permitted by copyright statute that might otherwise be infringing. Non-profit, educational, and personal use also tips the balance in favor of fair use.

 

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Our Lady of Medjugorje Monthly Messages

August 2, 2015 message form our Lady of Medjugorje:

Dear children,
I, as a mother who loves her children, see how difficult the time in which you live is. I see your suffering, but you need to know that you are not alone. My Son is with you. He is everywhere. He is invisible, but you can see Him if you live Him. He is the light which illuminates your soul and gives you peace. He is the Church which you need to love and to always pray and fight for - but not only with words, instead with acts of love. My children, bring it about for everyone to come to know my Son, bring it about that He may be loved, because the truth is in my Son born of God - the Son of God. Do not waste time deliberating too much; you will distance yourselves from the truth. With a simple heart accept His word and live it. If you live His word, you will pray. If you live His word, you will love with a merciful love; you will love each other. The more that you will love, the farther away you will be from death. For those who will live the word of my Son and who will love, death will be life. Thank you. 

Pray to be able to see my Son in your shepherds. Pray to be able to embrace Him in them. ~ Blessed Mother Mary

 

 

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 Papam Franciscus
(Pope Francis)

Pope Francis Daily Catechesis:

August 9, 2015

(2015-08-09 Vatican Radio) 
Pope Francis resumed his General Audiences on Wednesday, following the summer holiday. In his catechesis, the Holy Father continued his teaching on the family, reflecting on the situation of those who have divorced and entered into a second union.

“The Church knows well,” he said, “that such a situation contradicts the Christian Sacrament.” However, he continued, the Church, as a Mother, always seeks the good and salvation of all her children. The Pope said it is important for the Church to foster a true welcome for these families in our communities. The Church must always show her pastoral care for those in such situations, especially the children.

Pope Francis noted that the Church in recent decades has developed a greater awareness of the need to be welcoming toward the divorced and re-married. He emphasized that they are still part of the Church – they are not excommunicated, and should not be treated as such, but rather must be encouraged, with their families, to participate in the Church’s life: through prayer, listening to the Word of God, the Christian education of their children, and service to the poor. He pointed to the words of Pope Benedict XVI, who called for careful discernment and wise pastoral accompaniment, while recognizing that there are no “simple solutions” to the difficulties wounded families face.

The Church, Pope Francis said, should imitate the Good Shepherd, welcoming all her children as a mother who is willing to give her life for them. “Each one of us can do our part by having the attitude of the Good Shepherd, Who knows every one of His sheep, and excludes no one from His infinite love."

Reference:  

• Vatican News. From the Pope. © Copyright 2015 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Accessed - 08/09/2015

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Liturgical Celebrations to be presided over by Pope:  2015

Vatican City, Spring 2015 (VIS)

The following is the English text of the intentions – both universal and for evangelization – that, as is customary, the Pope entrusted to the Apostleship of Prayer for 2015. 

July

Universal: That political responsibility may be lived at all levels as a high form of charity.

Evangelization: That, amid social inequalities, Latin American Christians may bear witness to love for the poor and contribute to a more fraternal society.

August

Universal: That volunteers may give themselves generously to the service of the needy.

Evangelization: That setting aside our very selves we may learn to be neighbours to those who find themselves on the margins of human life and society.

September

Universal: That opportunities for education and employment may increase for all young people.

Evangelization: That catechists may give witness by living in a way consistent with the faith they proclaim.

October

Universal: That human trafficking, the modern form of slavery, may be eradicated.

Evangelization: That with a missionary spirit the Christian communities of Asia may announce the Gospel to those who are still awaiting it.

November

Universal: That we may be open to personal encounter and dialogue with all, even those whose convictions differ from our own.

Evangelization: That pastors of the Church, with profound love for their flocks, may accompany them and enliven their hope.

December

Universal: That all may experience the mercy of God, who never tires of forgiving.

Evangelization: That families, especially those who suffer, may find in the birth of Jesus a sign of certain hope.

Reference: 

• Vatican News. From the Pope. © Copyright 2015 - Libreria Editrice Vaticana. Accessed 07/26/2015.

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November 2, 2013 Our Lady of Medjugorje Message to the World: "Dear children; Anew, in a motherly way, I am calling you to love; to continually pray for the gift of love; to love the Heavenly Father above everything. When you love Him you will love yourself and your neighbor. This cannot be separated. The Heavenly Father is in each person. He loves each person and calls each person by his name. Therefore, my children, through prayer hearken to the will of the Heavenly Father. Converse with Him. Have a personal relationship with the Father which will deepen even more your relationship as a community of my children – of my apostles. As a mother I desire that, through the love for the Heavenly Father, you may be raised above earthly vanities and may help others to gradually come to know and come closer to the Heavenly Father. My children, pray, pray, pray for the gift of love because 'love' is my Son. Pray for your shepherds that they may always have love for you as my Son had and showed by giving His life for your salvation. Thank you."

October 25, 2013 Our Lady of Medjugorje Message to the World:  “Dear children! Today I call you to open yourselves to prayer. Prayer works miracles in you and through you. Therefore, little children, in the simplicity of heart seek of the Most High to give you the strength to be God’s children and for Satan not to shake you like the wind shakes the branches. Little children, decide for God anew and seek only His will – and then you will find joy and peace in Him. Thank you for having responded to my call.”

October 2, 2013 Our Lady of Medjugorje Message to the World: "Dear children, I love you with a motherly love and with a motherly patience I wait for your love and unity. I pray that you may be a community of God’s children, of my children. I pray that as a community you may joyfully come back to life in the faith and in the love of my Son. My children, I am gathering you as my apostles and am teaching you how to bring others to come to know the love of my Son; how to bring to them the Good News, which is my Son. Give me your open, purified hearts and I will fill them with the love for my Son. His love will give meaning to your life and I will walk with you. I will be with you until the meeting with the Heavenly Father. My children, it is those who walk towards the Heavenly Father with love and faith who will be saved. Do not be afraid, I am with you. Put your trust in your shepherds as my Son trusted when he chose them, and pray that they may have the strength and the love to lead you. Thank you." - See more at: http://litanylane.blogspot.com/2013/11/tuesday-november-12-2013-litany-lane.html#sthash.1QAVruYo.bk3E9rXR.dpuf

Today's Word:  revivify  [ri-viv-uh-fahy]  

Origin: 1665-75; < French révivifier < Late Latin revīvificāre.

verb (used with object), revivified, revivifying.

1.  to restore to life; give new life to; revive; reanimate.

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Today's Old Testament Reading -  Psalms 34:2-9

² I will praise Yahweh from my heart; let the humble hear and rejoice.
³ Proclaim with me the greatness of Yahweh, let us acclaim his name together.
⁴ I seek Yahweh and he answers me, frees me from all my fears.
⁵ Fix your gaze on Yahweh and your face will grow bright, you will never hang your head in shame.
⁶ A pauper calls out and Yahweh hears, saves him from all his troubles.
⁷ The angel of Yahweh encamps around those who fear him, and rescues them.
⁸ Taste and see that Yahweh is good. How blessed are those who take refuge in him.
⁹ Fear Yahweh, you his holy ones; those who fear him lack for nothing.

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Today's Epistle -  First Kings 19:4-8

⁴ He himself went on into the desert, a day's journey, and sitting under a furze bush wished he were dead. 'Yahweh,' he said, 'I have had enough. Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.'
⁵ Then he lay down and went to sleep. Then all of a sudden an angel touched him and said, 'Get up and eat.'
⁶ He looked round, and there at his head was a scone baked on hot stones, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
⁷ But the angel of Yahweh came back a second time and touched him and said, 'Get up and eat, or the journey will be too long for you.'
⁸ So he got up and ate and drank, and strengthened by that food he walked for forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, God's mountain.

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Today's Gospel Reading -   John 6: 41-51

The bread of life
John 6: 41-51

Opening prayer

Shaddai, God of the mountain,

You who make of our fragile life
the rock of your dwelling place,
lead our mind
to strike the rock of the desert,
so that water may gush to quench our thirst.
May the poverty of our feelings
cover us as with a mantle in the darkness of the night
and may it open our heart to hear the echo of silence
until the dawn,
wrapping us with the light of the new morning,
may bring us,
with the spent embers of the fire of the shepherds of the Absolute
who have kept vigil for us close to the divine Master,
the flavour of the holy memory.

1. Lectio

a) The Gospel:

41 The Jews then murmured at him, because he said, "I am the bread which came down from heaven." 42 They said, "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph, whose father and mother we know? How does he now say, 'I have come down from heaven'?" 43 Jesus answered them, "Do not murmur among yourselves. 44 No one can come to me unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day. 45 It is written in the prophets, 'And they shall all be taught by God.' Every one who has heard and learned from the Father comes to me. 46 Not that any one has seen the Father except him who is from God; he has seen the Father. 47 Truly, truly, I say to you, he who believes has eternal life. 48 I am the bread of life. 49 Your fathers ate the manna in the wilderness, and they died. 50 This is the bread which comes down from heaven, that a man may eat of it and not die. 51 I am the living bread which came down from heaven; if any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever; and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh."

b) A key to the reading:

The sixth chapter of John's Gospel presents a entire picture that develops around the Paschal theme and, analogously with what precedes it, unfolds through the telling of a miracle (5:1-9a 6:1-15) followed by a discourse (5:16-47; 6:22-59). The chapter relates that part of Jesus' activity in Galilee, precisely at its most sublime moment, when Jesus reveals himself as bread of life to be believed in and eaten in order to be saved. In vv. 1-15 we find the great sign of the multiplication of the loaves whose significance is revealed in the discourse of the following day in vv. 26-59: the gift of bread to satisfy the hunger of the people prepares the way for the words concerning the bread of eternal life. Inserted, vv. 16-21, we find the story of Jesus walking on the water. In vv. 60-71 Jesus, knowing their lack of faith (vv. 60-66) and trying to encourage their faith (vv. 66-71), invites the twelve disciples to make up their minds. The whole discourse on the bread of life (6: 25-71) presents parallels with some Hebrew texts, especially with Philon.

c) A moment of silence:  Let the sound of the Word echo in us.

2. Meditatio

v. 41. The Jews murmured at him because he had said: "I am the bread which came down from heaven". Jesus had just said: I am the bread of life (v. 35) and I have come down from heaven (v. 38) and this provokes dissent among the crowd. The term Jews is a theological one in John and may be thought of as synonymous with unbelievers. In truth these were Galileans who were called Jews because they murmured at Christ whose words disturbed their usual categories. The Jews were familiar with the term bread come down from heaven. The children of Israel knew the bread of God, the manna, which had satisfied their hunger in the desert and had given security to a precarious journey whose horizons were uncertain. Christ, manna for humankind who in the desert of an unsatisfied hunger invokes heaven to sustain it on its journey. This is the only bread that satisfies hunger. The words of the Jews are an objection to the person of Jesus and also an occasion to introduce the theme of unbelief. In other passages the people "whisper" about Jesus (7:12, 32), but in this chapter they "murmur" about what he says, about his words. This murmuring puts an emphasis on their unbelief and incomprehension.

v. 42. "Is not this Jesus, the son of Joseph whose father and mother we know? How does he now say: I have come down from heaven?". This is subtle irony. The unbelievers know the earthly origins of the Christ, they know for certain the son of Joseph, but not the son of God. Only those who believe know his transcendental origin by the direct intervention of God in the Virgin. The passage goes from material language, bread made from water and flour, to a spiritual language, bread for the human soul. As once the people in the desert did, the Jews murmur: they do not understand the origin of Jesus' gift: and as once their forbears refused the manna because it was too light, so now the descendants refuse the Word made flesh, bread come down from heaven, because of its earthly origin. The Jews, from all that Jesus said, only take note that he had said: I have come down from heaven (v. 38). Yet this is that which gives substance to all that was said before about being the bread of life (v. 35). The question: Is not this… is asked in a context of surprise in the Synoptic Gospels. In Matthew and Luke, through the story of Jesus' childhood, the reader has already been told of the virginal conception of Jesus. In John, the Galileans are confronted with someone who claims to have come down from heaven without any previous discussion as to his human condition. Son of Joseph means that Jesus is a man like all other men (cfr. 1,45).

v. 43-44. Jesus answered them: "Do not murmur among yourselves. No one can come to me, unless the Father who sent me draws him; and I will raise him up at the last day". Jesus does not seem to dwell on his divine origin but stresses that only those drawn by the Father can come to him. Faith then is a gift of God and depends on a person's openness and ability to listen… but what does it mean to say the Father draws? Is not a person free on this journey? The attraction is simply the desire written in the tablets of flesh borne in the heart of every person. Thus complete freedom exists in a spontaneous clinging to the source of one's being. Life can only attract life, only death cannot attract.

v. 45. It is written in the prophets: "And they shall all be taught by God. Everyone who has heard and learned from the Father, comes to me". The rest of the narrative follows a very precise order. These words are not an invitation, but a command. The creative Word of God, who called into existence from nothing light and all other creatures, now calls his own likeness to participate in the new creation. The consequence does not flow from an autonomous and personal decision, but from meeting with the person of Jesus and his call. It is a grace event, not a human choice. Jesus does not wait for a free decision, but calls with divine authority as God called the prophets in the Old Testament. It is not the disciples who choose the Master as was the case with rabbis at the time, but the Master who chooses the disciples as beneficiaries of God's inheritance, which is much greater than any doctrine or teaching. The call implies the giving up of family, profession, a complete change of one's way of life in order to cling to a way of life that leaves no space for self-centredness. The disciples are people of the kingdom. The call to become disciples of Jesus is an "eschatological call". The words of the Babylonian prophet of the exile says: "and all her children (Jerusalem's) shall be" - referring to the Jews. The use of: "all shall be" is an expression of the universality of salvation whose fulfilment is Jesus.

v. 46. Not that any one has seen the Father, except him who comes from God, he has seen the Father. Only Jesus, who is from God, has seen the Father and can reveal him definitively. People are called to come from God. Knowledge of the Father is not a conquest, it is an origin. The movement is not external. If I look for an external origin I can say that I have a father and mother, a creature of the created world. If I look for a deeper origin of my essential being I can say that I come from the Father, Creator of all life.

v. 47. Truly, truly, I say to you: He who believes has eternal life. To believe in the words of Jesus, in his revelation, is a condition for obtaining eternal life and to be able to be "taught by the Father". I believe, I lean on a rock. The strength is not within my creature limitations, nor in the realisation of my creature efforts to attain perfection. All is firm in Him who has no temporal attachments. How can a creature lean on itself when it is not master of one single instant of its life?

v. 48. I am the bread of life. Again the theme of the bread of life is presented together with that of faith and of eternal life. Jesus is the true bread of life. This verse is connected with verse 51 "I am the living bread". Only he who eats this bread, he who assimilates Jesus' revelation as vital bread, will be able to live.

vv. 49-50. Your Fathers ate the manna in the wilderness and they died: this is the bread which comes down from heaven that a man may eat of it and not die. The bread come down from heaven is contrasted with the manna that fed their fathers but not preserved them from death. This bread that gives life without end and comes from on high is the incarnate Word of God. The Eucharistic theme, already implied in some expressions, now becomes central. Earthly death does not contradict this experience of life if one walks along transcendental ways. The limitation is no limitation for those who eat of Him.

vv. 51. I am the living bread which came down from heaven. If any one eats of this bread, he will live for ever and the bread which I shall give for the life of the world is my flesh.". The "flesh" of Jesus is the vital food for the believer. The word flesh (sàrx), which in the Bible indicates the fragile reality of the human person before the mystery of God, now refers to the body of Christ immolated on the cross and to the human reality of the Word of God. It is no longer a metaphorical bread of life, it is the revelation of Jesus because the bread is the very flesh of the Son. For the life of the world means in favour of and emphasises the sacrificial dimension of Christ because for the world expresses the salvation which flows from that dimension.

c) Reflection:

Murmur. If our murmuring were like a soft breeze, it would act as a harmonious basis for the eternal words that become our flesh: I am the living Bread that has come down from heaven. What a surprise that would be, knowing that this eternal Bread is not a stranger, but Jesus, the son of Joseph, a man whose father and mother we know. We eat and we are assumed, because those who eat of this bread will live for ever. This is a bread that is born of the love of the Father. We are invited to listen and learn from Him on the trajectory of attraction, on that peak of faith that allows us to see. Bread with bread, Flesh with flesh. Only He who comes from God has seen the Father. And when we have made of our flesh the table of the living Bread, then we shall have seen the Father. Desert and death, heaven and life. A sweet marriage fulfilled in every Eucharist… on every altar, on the altar of the heart where the life of the divine Breath consumes the disfigured lineaments of a lost person.

3. Oratio

Psalm 33 (32)

By the word of the Lord the heavens were made,
and all their host by the breath of his mouth.
He gathered the waters of the sea as in a bottle;
he put the deeps in storehouses.

The Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nought;
he frustrates the plans of the peoples.
The counsel of the Lord stands for ever,
the thoughts of his heart to all generations.

Behold, the eye of the Lord is on those who fear him,
on those who hope in his steadfast love,
that he may deliver their soul from death,
and keep them alive in famine.

4. Contemplatio

The experience of the food that satisfies the hunger of the heart reminds me, Lord, that I can pass from imperfection to the fulfilment of being a reflection of yourself, not by doing away with the hunger, but by finding in it no longer a homo dormiens, someone who does not ask questions of himself, who lives without any interest, who does not wish to see or feel, who will not allow himself to be touched, who lives in fear, superficially rather than in depth, and who keeps a horizontal position when confronted by events, sleeping or ignoring whatever he meets… but rather a homo vigilans, he who is always present to himself and others, capable of satisfying himself by his work and service, who responsibly does not stop at that which is immediate, but who knows how to pace himself for the long and patient waiting, who expresses the all that dwells in each fragment of his life, who no longer fears feeling vulnerable, because he knows that the wounds of his humanity can be transformed into scars through which Life joins in the passing of time, a Life that is finally able to realise his End and that sings to Love with his "scarred heart" wrapped in a "flame that consumes but does not hurt" and in order to meet him definitively is prepared to "tear the veil". Hunger is no longer hunger, because it now becomes the sweet burden of limitation, protected by "the delicious wound" and always open to the "sweet encounter" that will satisfy every desire: "The Beloved is the mountain, the solitary valleys full of shade…He is like the calm night, very close to dawn, a silent music, a resounding silence… Who will heal this my scarred heart?… He is the consuming flame that does not hurt! O my Beloved, tear the veil at the moment of our sweet encounter."

Reference: Courtesy of Order of Carmelites, www.ocarm.org.

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Featured Item of the Day from Litany Lane

Saint Cecilia Partoness of Music Spiral Note Book by LitanyLane

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Saint of the Day:   Saint Dominic

Feast Day: August 9
Died: 1221
Patron Saint of :  astronomers

Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic (Spanish: Santo Domingo), also known as Dominic of Osma and Dominic of Caleruega, often called Dominic de Guzmán and Domingo Félix de Guzmán (1170 – August 6, 1221), was the founder of the Dominican Order. Dominic is the patron saint of astronomers.

Dominic was born in Caleruega, halfway between Osma and Aranda de Duero in Old Castile, Spain. He was named after Saint Dominic of Silos, who is said to be the patron saint of hopeful mothers. The Benedictine abbey of Santo Domingo de Silos lies a few miles north of Caleruega.

In the earliest narrative source, by Jordan of Saxony, Dominic's parents are not named. The story is told that before his birth his barren mother made a pilgrimage to Silos and dreamed that a dog leapt from her womb carrying a torch in its mouth, and "seemed to set the earth on fire". This story is likely to have emerged when his order became known, after his name, as the Dominican order, in Latin is Dominicanus and by a play of words was interpreted as Domini canis: "Dog of the Lord." Jordan adds that Dominic was brought up by his parents and a maternal uncle who was an archbishop. He was named in honour of Dominic of Silos as well as the Lord's Day (Sunday in Spanish is "Domingo.") Jordan of Saxony added that Dominic was brought up by his parents and a maternal uncle who was an archbishop. The failure to name his parests is not unusual, since Jordan wrote a history of the Order's early years, rather than a biography of Dominic. A later source, still of the 13th century, gives their names as Juana and Felix. Nearly a century after Dominic's birth, a local author asserted that Dominic's father was "vir venerabilis et dives in populo suo" ("an honoured and wealthy man in his village"). The travel narrative of Pero Tafur, written circa 1439 (about a pilgrimage to Dominic's tomb in Italy), states that Dominic's father belonged to the family de Guzmán, and that his mother belonged to the Aça or Aza family.

Education and early career

Dominic was educated in the schools of Palencia (they became a university soon afterwards) where he devoted six years to the arts and four to theology. In 1191, when Spain was desolated by famine, young Dominic gave away his money and sold his clothes, furniture and even precious manuscripts to feed the hungry. Dominic reportedly told his astonished fellow students: "Would you have me study off these dead skins, when men are dying of hunger?" In 1194, around age twenty-five, Dominic joined the Canons Regular in the canonry of Osma, following the rule of Saint Benedict.

In 1203 or 1204 he accompanied Diego de Acebo, the Bishop of Osma, on a diplomatic mission for Alfonso VIII, King of Castile, namely to secure a bride in Denmark for crown prince Ferdinand. The envoys traveled to Denmark via Aragon and the south of France. There, Dominic and Diego encountered the Cathars, a Christian religious sect with gnostic and dualistic beliefs, which the Roman Catholic Church deemed heretical. The Cathars ordained women as well as men; their "clergy" were celibate, vowed to poverty, and not subject to the pontiff's rule. Pope Innocent III initiated the first crusade against European Christian heretics with his Albigensian Crusades against the Cathars. The Danish mission proved futile, but the clerics saw a need to combat the heresy, so Diego and Dominic returned by way of Rome and Cîteaux. 

Foundation of the Dominicans

In 1208 Dominic encountered the papal legates returning in pomp to Rome, foiled in their attempt to counter the growing sect.

In 1215, Dominic established himself, with six followers, in a house given by Peter Seila, a rich resident of Toulouse. He subjected himself and his companions to the monastic rules of prayer and penance; and meanwhile bishop Foulques gave them written authority to preach throughout the territory of Toulouse. In the same year, the year of the Fourth Lateran Council, Dominic and Foulques went to Rome to secure the approval of the Pope, Innocent III. Dominic returned to Rome a year later, and was finally granted written authority in December 1216 and January 1217 by the new pope, Honorius III for an order to be named "The Order of Preachers" ("Ordo Praedicatorum", or "O.P.," popularly known as the Dominican Order).

Later life

Basilica San Domenica  chapel, Bologna

Dominic made his headquarters at Rome,  although he traveled extensively to maintain contact with his growing brotherhood of friars. It was in the winter of 1216–1217, at the house of Ugolino de' Conti that he first met William of Montferrat, afterwards a close friend.

Dominic arrived in Bologna on 21 December 1218. A convent was established at the Mascarella church by the Blessed Reginald of Orléans. Soon afterwards they had to move to the church of San Nicolò of the Vineyards. Dominic settled in this church and held in this church the first two General Chapters of the order. He died there on 6 August 1221 and was moved into a simple sarcophagus in 1233. In 1267 Dominic's remains were moved to the shrine, made by Nicola Pisano and his workshop.

According to Guiraud, Dominic abstained from meat, "observed stated fasts and periods of silence", "selected the worst accommodations and the meanest clothes", and "never allowed himself the luxury of a bed".  "When travelling, he beguiled the journey with spiritual instruction and prayers" (also Guiraud). Guiraud also states that "as soon as Dominic passed the limits of towns and villages, he took off his shoes, and, however sharp the stones or thorns, he trudged on his way barefooted", and that "rain and other discomforts elicited from his lips nothing but praises to God".

Dominic died at the age of fifty-one, according to Guiraud "exhausted with the austerities and labours of his career". He had reached the convent of St Nicholas at Bologna, Italy, "weary and sick with a fever". Guiraud states that Dominic "made the monks lay him on some sacking stretched upon the ground" and that "the brief time that remained to him was spent in exhorting his followers to have charity, to guard their humility, and to make their treasure out of poverty". He died at noon on 6 August 1221.

Inquisition

That Dominic was the founder of the Albigensian Inquisition and the first inquisitor-general has become a part of Roman tradition. It is affirmed by all the historians of the Order, and by all the panegyrists of the Inquisition; it is found in the bull Invictarum of Sixtus V, and it is confirmed by a bull of Innocent III, appointing him inquisitor-general. The 19th century historian Henry Charles Lea stated, "Yet it is safe to say that no tradition of the Church rests on a slenderer basis." Lea went on to state in the same paragraph: "That Dominic devoted the best years of his life to combating heresy there is no doubt, and as little that, when a heretic was deaf to argument or persuasion, he would cheerfully stand by the pyre and see him burned, like any other zealous missionary of the time; but in this he was no more prominent than hundreds of others, and of organized work in this direction he was utterly guiltless."

What part Dominic personally had in the proceedings of the episcopal Medieval Inquisition has been disputed for many centuries. The historical sources from Dominic's own time period tell us nothing about his involvement in the Inquisition, although several early Dominicans, including some of Dominic's first followers, did become inquisitors. The statement that Dominic had been an inquisitor was first made in the 14th century by a famous Dominican inquisitor, Bernard Gui, who tried to paint his Order's founder as a participant in the Institution. In the 15th century, Dominic would be depicted as presiding at an auto da fé, later offering German Protestant critics of the Catholic Church an argument against the Order whose preaching had proven to be a formidable opponent in the lands of the Reformation. Thus a 14th century claim became a part of the Black Legend.

Despite the bull Invictarum of Sixtus V cited above, Jacques Échard argued that Dominic could not have been an inquisitor because the Papal Inquisition was not officially established until 1231 by Pope Gregory IX., although of course the Episcopal Inquisition in which Dominicans played an important role predates that. Some others call the Saint "the first inquisitor" with no other historical basis.

Rosary

Madonna of the Rosary

The spread of the Rosary, a Marian devotion, is attributed to the preaching of St. Dominic. The Rosary has for centuries been at the heart of the Dominican Order. Pope Pius XI stated that: "The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others."  For centuries, Dominicans have been instrumental in spreading the rosary and emphasizing the Catholic belief in the power of the rosary.

According to tradition, the rosary was given to Saint Dominic in an apparition by the Blessed Virgin Mary in the year 1214 in the church of Prouille. This Marian apparition received the title of Our Lady of the Rosary. In the 15th century Blessed Alanus de Rupe (aka Alain de la Roche or Saint Alan of the Rock), who was a learned Dominican priest and theologian, is said to have received a vision from Jesus about the urgency of reinstating the rosary as a form of prayer. Blessed Alanus de Rupe also received the Blessed Mother's "15 Promises". Before his death on Sept. 8, 1475 and through his devotion to the Blessed Mother, he reinstituted the rosary in many countries and established many rosary confraternities. Despite the popularity of Blessed Alanus's story about the origins of the rosary, there has never been found any historical evidence positively linking St. Dominic to the rosary. The story of St. Dominic's devotion to the rosary and supposed apparition of Our Lady of the Rosary does not appear in any documents of the Church or Dominican Order prior to the writings of Blessed Alanus. St. Dominic and Blessed Alanus are separated by 250 years.

References

• Bedouelle, Guy (1995). Saint Dominic: The Grace of the Word. Ignatius Press. ISBN 0-89870-531-2.
• Guy Bedouelle, "The Holy Inquisition: Dominic and the Dominicans," an article on the main Dominican website
• Guiraud, Jean (1913). Saint Dominic. Duckworth. Full text at archive.org
• Francis C. Lehner, ed., St Dominic: biographical documents. Washington: Thomist Press, 1964 Full text
• McGonigle, Thomas; Zagano, Phyllis (2006). The Dominican Tradition. Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press. ISBN 978-0-8146-1911-7.
• Pierre Mandonnet, M. H. Vicaire, St. Dominic and His Work. Saint Louis, 1948 Full text at Dominican Central
• Catholic Encyclopedia: St. Dominic by John B. O'Conner, 1909.
• Tugwell, Simon (1982). Early Dominicans: Selected Writings. New York: Paulist Press. ISBN 978-0-8091-2414-5. http://www.amazon.com/gp/reader/0809124149/ref=sib_dp_ptu#reader-link.
• Vicaire, M.-H. (1964). Saint Dominic and his Times. Green Bay, Wisconsin: Alt Publishing. ASIN B0000CMEWR.
• Wishart, Alfred Wesley (1900). A Short History of Monks and Monasteries. Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13206.

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Today's Snippet I:  Dominican Order

Seal of the Dominican Order

The Order of Preachers (Latin: Ordo Praedicatorum), after the 15th century more commonly known as the Dominican Order or Dominicans, is a Roman Catholic religious order founded by Saint Dominic and approved by Pope Honorius III (1216–27) on 22 December 1216 in France. Membership in the Order includes friars, nuns, congregations of active sisters, and lay persons affiliated with the order (formerly known as tertiaries, now Lay or Secular Dominicans). A number of other names have been used to refer to both the order and its members.

• In England and other countries the Dominicans are referred to as Black Friars because of the black cappa or cloak they wear over their white habits. Dominicans were Blackfriars, as opposed to Whitefriars (for example, the Carmelites) or Greyfriars (for example, Franciscans). They are also distinct from the Augustinian Friars (the Austin friars) who wear a similar habit.
• In France, the Dominicans are known as Jacobins, because their first convent in Paris was built near the church of Saint Jacques, (St. James) and Jacques (James) is Jacobus in Latin.
• Their identification as Dominicans gave rise to the pun that they were the Domini canes, or Hounds of the Lord.

Members of the order generally carry the letters O.P. standing for Ordinis Praedicatorum, meaning of the Order of Preachers, after their names. Founded to preach the Gospel and to combat heresy, the order is famed for its intellectual tradition, having produced many leading theologians and philosophers. The Dominican Order is headed by the Master of the Order, who is currently Father Bruno Cadoré.

Foundation

Like his contemporary, Francis of Assisi, Dominic saw the need for a new type of organization, and the quick growth of the Dominicans and Franciscans during their first century of existence confirms that the orders of mendicant friars met a need.

He had accompanied as canon Diego de Acebo, Bishop of Osma on a diplomatic mission to Denmark, to arrange the marriage between the son of King Alfonso VIII of Castile and a niece of King Valdemar II of Denmark. At that time the south of France was the stronghold of the Cathar or Albigensian heresy, named after the Duke of Albi, a Cathar sympathiser and opponent to the subsequent Albigensian Crusade (1209–1229).

The Albigensians, more commonly known as the Cathars, were a heretical gnostic sect, holding that matter was evil and only spirit was good; this was a fundamental challenge to the notion of incarnation, central to Roman Catholic theology. Dominic saw the need for a response that would attempt to sway members of the Albigensian movement back to mainstream Christian thought. The mendicant preacher emerged from this insight. Despite this particular mission, in winning the Albigensians over by persuasion Dominic met limited success, "for though in his ten years of preaching a large number of converts were made, it has to be said that the results were not such as had been hoped for."

Dominic nevertheless became the spiritual father to several Albigensian women he had reconciled to the faith, and in 1206 he established them in a convent in Prouille. This convent would become the foundation of the Dominican nuns, thus making the Dominican nuns older than the Dominican friars.

Dominic sought to establish a new kind of order, one that would bring the dedication and systematic education of the older monastic orders like the Benedictines to bear on the religious problems of the burgeoning population of cities, but with more organizational flexibility than either monastic orders or the secular clergy. Dominic's new order was to be a preaching order, trained to preach in the vernacular languages. Rather than earning their living on vast farms as the monasteries had done, the new friars would survive by begging, "selling" themselves through persuasive preaching.

Saint Dominic established a religious community in Toulouse in 1214, to be governed by the rule of St. Augustine and statutes to govern the life of the friars, including the Primitive Constitution. (The statutes borrowed somewhat from the Constitutions of Prémontré.) The founding documents establish that the Order was founded for two purposes: preaching and the salvation of souls. The organization of the Order of Preachers was approved in December 1216 by Pope Honorius III (see also Religiosam vitam; Nos attendentes).

The Order's origins in battling heterodoxy influenced its later development and reputation. Many later Dominicans battled heresy as part of their apostolate. Indeed, many years after St. Dominic reacted to the Cathars, the first Grand Inquistor of Spain, Tomás de Torquemada, would be drawn from the Dominican order.

History

The history of the Order may be divided into three periods:

• The Middle Ages (from their foundation to the beginning of the 16th century);
• The Modern Period up to the French Revolution;
• The Contemporary Period.

 

Middle Ages

The Dominican friars quickly spread, including to England, where they appeared in Oxford in 1221. In the 13th century the order reached all classes of Christian society, fought heresy, schism, and paganism by word and book, and by its missions to the north of Europe, to Africa, and Asia passed beyond the frontiers of Christendom. Its schools spread throughout the entire Church; its doctors wrote monumental works in all branches of knowledge, including the extremely important Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas. Its members included popes, cardinals, bishops, legates, inquisitors, confessors of princes, ambassadors, and paciarii (enforcers of the peace decreed by popes or councils). The order was appointed by Pope Gregory IX the duty to carry out the Inquisition. In his Papal Bull Ad extirpanda of 1252, Pope Innocent IV authorised the Dominicans' use of torture under prescribed circumstances. 

The expansion of the Order produced changes. A smaller emphasis on doctrinal activity favoured the development here and there of the ascetic and contemplative life and there sprang up, especially in Germany and Italy, the mystical movement with which the names of Meister Eckhart, Heinrich Suso, Johannes Tauler, and St. Catherine of Siena are associated. (See German mysticism, which has also been called "Dominican mysticism.") This movement was the prelude to the reforms undertaken, at the end of the century, by Raymond of Capua, and continued in the following century. It assumed remarkable proportions in the congregations of Lombardy and the Netherlands, and in the reforms of Savonarola at Florence.

At the same time the Order found itself face to face with the Renaissance. It struggled against pagan tendencies in Renaissance humanism, in Italy through Dominici and Savonarola, in Germany through the theologians of Cologne but it also furnished humanism with such advanced writers as Francesco Colonna (probably the writer of the Hypnerotomachia Poliphili) and Matteo Bandello. Many Dominicans took part in the artistic activity of the age, the most prominent being Fra Angelico and Fra Bartolomeo.

Reformation to French Revolution

Bartolomé de Las Casas

Bartolomé de las Casas O.P. (c. 1484^[1] – 18 July 1566) was a 16th-century Spanish historian, social reformer and Dominican friar. He became the first resident Bishop of Chiapas, and the first officially appointed "Protector of the Indians." His extensive writings, the most famous being A Short Account of the Destruction of the Indies and Historia de Las Indias, chronicle the first decades of colonization of the West Indies and focus particularly on the atrocities committed by the colonizers against the indigenous peoples

Arriving as one of the first settlers in the New World he participated in, and was eventually compelled to oppose, the atrocities committed against the Native Americans by the Spanish colonists. In 1515 he reformed his views, gave up his Indian slaves and encomienda, and advocated, before King Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, on behalf of rights for the natives. In his early writings he advocated the use of African slaves instead of Natives in the West-Indian colonies, and consequently he has been criticized as being partly responsible for the beginning of the Transatlantic slave trade. Later in life he retracted those early views as he came to see all forms of slavery as equally wrong. In 1522 he attempted to launch a new kind of peaceful colonialism on the coast of Venezuela, but this venture failed causing Las Casas to enter the Dominican Order and become a friar, leaving the public scene for a decade. He then traveled to Central America undertaking peaceful evangelization among the Maya of Guatemala and participated in debates among the Mexican churchmen about how best to bring the natives to the Christian faith. Traveling back to Spain to recruit more missionaries, he continued lobbying for the abolition of the encomienda, gaining an important victory by the passing of the New Laws in 1542. He was appointed Bishop of Chiapas, but served only for a short time before he was forced to return to Spain because of resistance to the New Laws by the encomenderos, and conflicts with Spanish settlers because of his pro-Indian policies and activist religious stances. The remainder of his life was spent at the Spanish court where he held great influence over Indies-related issues. In 1550 he participated in the Valladolid debate; he argued against Juan Ginés de Sepúlveda that the Indians were fully human and that forcefully subjugating them was unjustifiable. Sepúlveda countered that they were less than human and required Spanish masters in order to become civilized.

Bartolomé de las Casas spent 50 years of his life actively fighting slavery and the violent colonial abuse of indigenous peoples, especially by trying to convince the Spanish court to adopt a more humane policy of colonization. And although he failed to save the indigenous peoples of the Western Indies, his efforts resulted in several improvements in the legal status of the natives, and in an increased colonial focus on the ethics of colonialism. Las Casas is often seen as one of the first advocates for universal Human Rights.

Gaspar da Cruz (c. 1520–1570), who worked all over the Portuguese colonial empire in Asia, was probably the first Christian missionary to preach (unsuccessfully) in Cambodia. After a (similarly unsuccessful) stint in Guangzhou, China, he eventually returned to Portugal and became the first European to publish a book on China in 1569/1570.

The modern period consists of the three centuries between the religious revolution at the beginning of the 16th century (the Protestant Reformation) and the French Revolution and its consequences. The beginning of the 16th century confronted the order with the upheavals of Revolution. The spread of Protestantism cost it six or seven provinces and several hundreds of convents, but the discovery of the New World opened up a fresh field of activity. 

In the 18th century, there were numerous attempts at reform, accompanied by a reduction in the number of devotees. The French Revolution ruined the order in France, and crises that more or less rapidly followed considerably lessened or wholly destroyed numerous provinces.

19th century to present

The contemporary period of the history of the Preachers begins with restorations in provinces, undertaken after revolutions destroyed the Order in several countries of the Old and New World. This period begins more or less in the early 19th century.

During this critical period, the number of Preachers seems never to have sunk below 3,500. Statistics for 1876 show 3,748, but 500 of these had been expelled from their convents and were engaged in parochial work. Statistics for 1910 show a total of 4,472 nominally or actually engaged in proper activities of the Order. In the year 2000, there were 5,171 Dominican friars in solemn vows, 917 student brothers, and 237 novices. By the year 2010 there were 5,906 Dominican friars, including 4,456 priests. Their provinces cover the world, and include four provinces in the United States.

In the revival movement France held a foremost place, owing to the reputation and convincing power of the orator, Jean-Baptiste Henri Lacordaire (1802–1861). He took the habit of a Friar Preacher at Rome (1839), and the province of France was canonically erected in 1850. From this province were detached the province of Lyon, called Occitania (1862), that of Toulouse (1869), and that of Canada (1909). The French restoration likewise furnished many laborers to other provinces, to assist in their organization and progress. From it came the master general who remained longest at the head of the administration during the 19th century, Père Vincent Jandel (1850–1872). Here should be mentioned the province of St. Joseph in the United States. Founded in 1805 by Father Edward Fenwick, afterwards first Bishop of Cincinnati, Ohio (1821–1832), this province has developed slowly, but now ranks among the most flourishing and active provinces of the order. In 1910 it numbered seventeen convents or secondary houses. In 1905, it established a large house of studies at Washington, D.C., called the Dominican House of Studies. There are now four Dominican provinces in the United States.

The province of France has produced a large number of preachers. The conferences of Notre-Dame-de-Paris were inaugurated by Père Lacordaire. The Dominicans of the province of France furnished Lacordaire (1835–1836, 1843–1851), Jacques Monsabré (1869–1870, 1872–1890), Joseph Ollivier (1871, 1897), Thomas Etourneau (1898–1902). Since 1903 the pulpit of Notre Dame has been occupied by a succession of Dominicans. Père Henri Didon (d. 1900) was a Dominican. The house of studies of the province of France publishes L'Année Dominicaine (founded 1859), La Revue des Sciences Philosophiques et Theologiques (1907), and La Revue de la Jeunesse (1909). French Dominicans founded and administer the École Biblique et Archéologique française de Jérusalem founded in 1890 by Père Marie-Joseph Lagrange O.P. (1855–1938), one of the leading international centres for Biblical research. It is at the École Biblique that the famed Jerusalem Bible (both editions) was prepared.

Likewise Yves Cardinal Congar, O.P. was a product of the French province of the Order of Preachers. Doctrinal development has had an important place in the restoration of the Preachers. Several institutions, besides those already mentioned, played important parts. Such is the Biblical school at Jerusalem, open to the religious of the Order and to secular clerics, which publishes the Revue Biblique. The faculty of theology at the University of Fribourg, confided to the care of the Dominicans in 1890, is flourishing, and has about 250 students. The Collegium Angelicum, established at Rome (1911) by Master Hyacinth Cormier, is open to regulars and seculars for the study of the sacred sciences. In addition to the reviews above are the Revue Thomiste, founded by Père Thomas Coconnier (d. 1908), and the Analecta Ordinis Prædicatorum (1893). Among numerous writers of the order in this period are: Cardinals Thomas Zigliara (d. 1893) and Zephirin González (d. 1894), two esteemed philosophers; Father Alberto Guillelmotti (d. 1893), historian of the Pontifical Navy, and Father Heinrich Denifle, one of the most famous writers on medieval history (d. 1905).

Divisions

Nuns

The Dominican nuns were founded by St. Dominic even before he had established the friars. They are contemplatives in the cloistered life. The Friars and Nuns together form the Order of Preachers properly speaking. The nuns celebrated their 800th anniversary in 2006.

 

Sisters

Dominican sisters carry on a number of apostolates. They are distinct from the nuns. The sisters are a way of living the vocation of a Third Order Dominican.  As well as the friars, Dominican sisters live their lives supported by four common values, often referred to as the Four Pillars of Dominican Life, they are: community life, common prayer, study and service. St. Dominic called this fourfold pattern of life the "holy preaching."Henri Matisse was so moved by the care that he received from the Dominican Sisters that he collaborated in the design and interior decoration of their Chapelle du Saint-Marie du Rosaire in Vence, France.

Laity

Dominican laity are governed by their own rule, the Rule of the Lay Fraternities of St. Dominic, promulgated by the Master in 1987. It is the fifth Rule of the Dominican Laity; the first was issued in 1285. The two greatest saints of among them are St. Catherine of Siena and St. Rose of Lima, who lived ascetic lives in their family homes, yet both had widespead influence in their societies.

Spirituality

Dominican spirituality

The spiritual tradition of Dominic's Order is punctuated not only by charity, study and preaching, but also by instances of mystical union. The Dominican emphasis on learning and on charity distinguishes it from other monastic and mendicant orders. As the Order first developed on the European continent, learning continued to be emphasized by these friars and their sisters in Christ. These religious also struggled for a deeply personal, intimate relationship with God. When the Order reached England, many of these attributes were kept, but the English gave the Order additional, specialized characteristics. This topic is discussed below.

Dominic's search for a close relationship with God was determined and unceasing. He rarely spoke, so little of his interior life is known. What is known about it comes from accounts written by people near to him. St. Cecilia remembered him as cheerful, charitable and full of unceasing vigor. From a number of accounts, singing was apparently one of Dominic's great delights. Dominic practiced self-scourging and would mortify himself as he prayed alone in the chapel at night for 'poor sinners.' He owned a single habit, refused to carry money, and would allow no one to serve him.

The spirituality evidenced throughout all of the branches of the Order reflects the spirit and intentions of its founder, though some of the elements of what later developed may have surprised the Castilian friar. Fundamentally, Dominic was "...a man of prayer who utilized the full resources of the learning available to him to preach, to teach, and even materially to assist those searching for the truth found in the gospel of Christ. It is that spirit which [Dominic] bequeathed to his followers".

Bl. Humbert

Humbert of Romans, the Master General of the Order from 1254 to 1263, was a great administrator, as well as preacher and writer. It was under his tenure as Master General that the sisters in the Order were given official membership. Humbert was a great lover of languages, and encouraged linguistic studies among the Dominicans, primarily Arabic, because of the missionary work friars were pursuing amongst those led astray or forced to convert by Mohammedans in the Middle East. He also wanted his friars to reach excellence in their preaching, and this was his most lasting contribution to the Order. The growth of the spirituality of young preachers was his first priority. He once cried to his students: ". . . consider how excellent this office [of preaching] is, because it is apostolic; how useful, because it is directly ordained for the salvation of souls; how perilous, because few have in them, or perform, what the office requires, for it is not without great danger. . . . Item, take note that this office calls for excellency of life, so that just as the preacher speaks from a raised position, so he may also preach the Gospel from the mountain of an excellent life"

Humbert is at the center of ascetic writers in the Dominican Order. In this role, he added significantly to its spirituality. His writings are permeated with "religious good sense," and he used uncomplicated language that could edify even the weakest member. Humbert advised his readers, "[Young Dominicans] are also to be instructed not to be eager to see visions or work miracles, since these avail little to salvation, and sometimes we are fooled by them; but rather they should be eager to do good in which salvation consists. Also, they should be taught not to be sad if they do not enjoy the divine consolations they hear others have; but they should know the loving Father for some reason sometimes withholds these. Again, they should learn that if they lack the grace of compunction or devotion they should not think they are not in the state of grace as long as they have good will, which is all that God regards". The English Dominicans took this to heart, and made it the focal point of their mysticism, as seen below.

Albertus Magnus

Albert Magnus

Another who contributed significantly to the spirituality of the Order is Albertus Magnus, the only person of the period to be given the appellation "Great". His influence on the brotherhood permeated nearly every aspect of Dominican life. Albert was a scientist, philosopher, theologian, spiritual writer, ecumenist, and diplomat. Under the auspices of Humbert of Romans, Albert molded the curriculum of studies for all Dominican students, introduced Aristotle to the classroom and probed the work of Neoplatonists, such as Plotinus. Indeed, it was the thirty years of work done by Thomas Aquinas and himself (1245–1274) that allowed for the inclusion of Aristotelian study in the curriculum of Dominican schools.

One of Albert's greatest contributions was his study of Dionysus the Areopagite, a mystical theologian whose words left an indelible imprint in the medieval period. Magnus' writings made a significant contribution to German mysticism, which became vibrant in the minds of the Beguines and women such as Hildegard of Bingen and Mechthild of Magdeburg. Mysticism, for the purposes of this study, refers to the conviction that all believers have the capability to experience God's love. This love may manifest itself through brief ecstatic experiences, such that one may be engulfed by God and gain an immediate knowledge of Him, which is unknowable through the intellect alone.

Albertus Magnus championed the idea, drawn from Dionysus, that positive knowledge of God is possible, but obscure. Thus, it is easier to state what God is not, than to state what God is: ". . . we affirm things of God only relatively, that is, casually, whereas we deny things of God absolutely, that is, with reference to what He is in Himself. And there is no contradiction between a relative affirmation and an absolute negation. It is not contradictory to say that someone is white-toothed and not white".

Albert the Great wrote that wisdom and understanding enhance one's faith in God. According to him, these are the tools that God uses to commune with a contemplative. Love in the soul is both the cause and result of true understanding and judgement. It causes not only an intellectual knowledge of God, but a spiritual and emotional knowledge as well. Contemplation is the means whereby one can obtain this goal of understanding. Things that once seemed static and unchanging become full of possibility and perfection. The contemplative then knows that God is, but she does not know what God is. Thus, contemplation forever produces a mystified, imperfect knowledge of God. The soul is exalted beyond the rest of God's creation but it cannot see God Himself.

Charity and meekness

As the image of God grows within man, he learns to rely less on an intellectual pursuit of virtue and more on an affective pursuit of charity and meekness. Meekness and charity guide Christians to acknowledge that they are nothing without the One (God/Christ) who created them, sustains them, and guides them. Thus, man then directs his path to that One, and the love for, and of, Christ guides man's very nature to become centered on the One, and on his neighbor as well. Charity is the manifestation of the pure love of Christ, both for and by His follower.

Although the ultimate attainment for this type of mysticism is union with God, it is not necessarily visionary, nor does it hope only for ecstatic experiences; instead, mystical life is successful if it is imbued with charity. The goal is just as much to become like Christ as it is to become one with Him. Those who believe in Christ should first have faith in Him without becoming engaged in such overwhelming phenomena.

 

The Dominican Order was affected by a number of elemental influences. Its early members imbued the order with a mysticism and learning. The Europeans of the Order embraced ecstatic mysticism on a grand scale and looked to a union with the Creator. The English Dominicans looked for this complete unity as well, but were not so focused on ecstatic experiences. Instead, their goal was to emulate the moral life of Christ more completely. The Dartford nuns were surrounded by all of these legacies, and used them to create something unique. Though they are not called mystics, they are known for their piety toward God and their determination to live lives devoted to, and in emulation of, Him.

Dartford Priory was established long after the primary period of monastic foundation in England had ended. It emulated, then, the monasteries found in Europe—mainly France and German—as well as the monastic traditions of their English Dominican brothers. As already stated, the first nuns to inhabit Dartford were sent from Poissy Priory in France.

Evidence for the strength of the English Dominican nuns' vocation is strong itself. Even on the eve of the Dissolution, Prioress Jane Vane wrote to Cromwell on behalf of a postulant, saying that though she had not actually been professed, she was professed in her heart and in the eyes of God. This is only one such example of dedication. Profession in Dartford Priory seems, then, to have been made based on personal commitment, and one's personal association with God.

Rosary

Throughout the centuries, the Holy Rosary has been an important element among the Dominicans. Pope Pius XI stated that:

The Rosary of Mary is the principle and foundation on which the very Order of Saint Dominic rests for making perfect the life of its members and obtaining the salvation of others.

Histories of the Holy Rosary often attribute its origin to Saint Dominic himself through the Blessed Virgin Mary. Our Lady of the Rosary is the title received by the Marian apparition to Saint Dominic in 1208 in the church of Prouille in which the Virgin Mary gave the Rosary to him. For centuries, Dominicans have been instrumental in spreading the rosary and emphasizing the Catholic belief in the power of the rosary.

On January 1, 2008, the Master of the Order declared a year of dedication to the Rosary.

Missionary activity of the Dominicans

The Dominican Order came into being in the Middle Ages at a time when religion began to be contemplated in a new way. Men who gave themselves and their souls completely into the keeping of God were no longer expected to stay behind the walls of a cloister. Instead, they traveled among the people, taking as their examples the apostles of the primitive Church. Out of this ideal emerged two orders of mendicant friars: one, the Friars Minor, was led by Francis of Assisi; the other, the Friars Preachers, by Dominic of Guzman.

The man who established the Dominican Order offered his followers a lofty and abiding cause. Dominic inspired his followers with loyalty to learning and virtue, a deep recognition of the spiritual power of worldly deprivation and the religious state, and a highly developed governmental structure. He also produced a group people who succeeded in converting Albigensians to the orthodox faith. At the same time, Dominic inspired the members of his Order to develop a "mixed" spirituality. They were both active in preaching, and contemplative in study, prayer and meditation. The brethren of the Dominican Order were urban and learned, as well as contemplative and mystical in their spirituality. While these traits had an impact on the women of the Order, the nuns especially absorbed the latter characteristics and made those characteristics their own. In England, the Dominican nuns blended these elements with the defining characteristics of English Dominican spirituality and created a spirituality and collective personality that set them apart.

St. Dominic

As the father of the Order of Preachers, Dominic had a lasting influence on a group of people who sought to fulfill his ideals. As a young adolescent, he had a particular love of theology and the Scriptures became the foundation of his spirituality. Dominic studied in Palencia for a decade and maintained a dedication to purpose and a self-sacrificing attitude that caused the poor of the city to love him. During his sojourn in Palencia, Spain experienced a dreadful famine, prompting Dominic to sell all of his beloved books and other equipment to help his neighbors.

Dominic was also noticed by important members of the religious community of Spain. After he completed his studies, Bishop Martin Bazan and Prior Diego d'Achebes appointed Dominic to the cathedral chapter and he became a regular canon under the Rule of St. Augustine and the Constitutions for the cathedral church of Osma. At the age of twenty-four or twenty-five, he was ordained to the priesthood.

In the spring of 1203, Dominic joined Prior Diego on an embassy to Denmark for the monarchy of Spain. Dominic was fired by a reforming zeal after they encountered Albigensian Christians at Toulouse. He set about reconverting the region to Roman Christianity. On the return trip to Spain, the two brethren met with a group of papal legates who were determined to triumph over the Manichean menace. Prior Diego saw immediately one of the paramount reasons for the spread of the unorthodox movement: the representatives of the Holy Church acted and moved with an offensive amount of pomp and ceremony. On the other hand, the Cathars lived in a state of apostolic self-sacrifice that was widely appealing. For these reasons, Prior Diego suggested that the papal legates begin to live a reformed apostolic life. The legates agreed to change if they could find a strong leader. The prior took up the challenge, and he and Dominic dedicated themselves to the conversion of the Albigensians.

Dominican convent established

As time passed, Prior Diego sanctioned the building of a monastery for girls whose parents had sent them to the care of the Albigensians because their families were too poor to fulfill their basic needs. The monastery was at Prouille and would later become Dominic's headquarters for his missionary effort there. Prior Diego died, after two years in the mission field, on his return trip to Spain. When his preaching companions heard of his death, all save Dominic and a very small number of others returned to their homes.

Founding of the Order of Preachers

In July 1215, with the approbation of Bishop Foulques of Toulouse, Dominic ordered his followers into an institutional life. Its purpose was revolutionary in the pastoral ministry of the Catholic Church. These priests were organized and well trained in religious studies. Many men influenced the shape and character of the Dominican Order, but it was Dominic himself who combined the available components into a vital and vigorous, whole existence. Dominic needed a framework—a rule—to organize these components. The Rule of St. Augustine was an obvious choice for the Dominican Order, according to Dominic's successor, Jordan of Saxony, because it lent itself to the "salvation of souls through preaching". By this choice, however, the Dominican brothers designated themselves not monks, but canons-regular. They could practice ministry and common life while existing in individual poverty.

Dominic's education at Palencia gave him the knowledge he needed to overcome the Manicheans. With charity, the other concept that most defines the work and spirituality of the Order, study became the method most used by the Dominicans in working to defend the Church against the perils that hounded it, and also of enlarging its authority over larger areas of the known world. In Dominic's thinking, it was impossible for men to preach what they did not or could not understand. When the brethren left Prouille, then, to begin their apostolic work, Dominic sent Matthew of Paris to establish a school near the University of Paris. This was the first of many Dominican schools established by the brethren, some near large universities throughout Europe.

Mysticism

By 1300, the enthusiasm for preaching and conversion within the Order lessened. Mysticism, full of the ideas Albertus Magnus expostulated, became the devotion of the greatest minds and hands within the organization. It became a "powerful instrument of personal and theological transformation both within the Order of Preachers and throughout the wider reaches of Christendom.

Although Albertus Magnus did much to instill mysticism in the Order of Preachers, it is a concept that reaches back to the Hebrew Bible. In the tradition of Holy Writ, the impossibility of coming face to face with God is a recurring motif, thus the commandment against graven images (Exodus 20.4-5). As time passed, Jewish and early Christian writings presented the idea of 'unknowing,' where God's presence was enveloped in a dark cloud. These images arose out of a confusing mass of ambiguous and ambivalent statements regarding the nature of God and man's relationship to Him.

Other passages attest to the opposite circumstance: that of seeing God and talking with Him. Obviously, the conflict between seeing and not-seeing exists in early texts as well as later ones. It also permeates the Law, the Prophets, and the Writings. The consequence is a paradox that emerges repeatedly throughout Christian Scripture and the mysticism found in the early foundations of the Church.^[62] 

All of these ideas associated with mysticism were at play in the spirituality of the Dominican community, and not only among the men. In Europe, in fact, it was often the female members of the Order, such as Catherine of Siena, Mechthild of Magdeburg, Christine of Stommeln, Margaret Ebner, and Elsbet Stagl, that gained reputations for having mystical experiences. Notable male members of the Order associated with mysticism include Meister Eckhart and Henry Suso.

Women

St Catherine of Sienna

Although Dominic and the early brethren had instituted female Dominican houses at Prouille and other places by 1227, some of the brethren of the Order had misgivings about the necessity of female religious establishments in an Order whose major purpose was preaching, a duty in which women could not traditionally engage. In spite of these doubts, women's houses dotted the countryside throughout Europe. There were seventy-four Dominican female houses in Germany, forty-two in Italy, nine in France, eight in Spain, six in Bohemia, three in Hungary, and three in Poland. Many of the German religious houses that lodged women had been home to communities of women, such as Beguines, that became Dominican once they were taught by the traveling preachers and put under the jurisdiction of the Dominican authoritative structure. A number of these houses became centers of study and mystical spirituality in the 14th century. There were one hundred and fifty-seven nunneries in the Order by 1358. In that year, the number lessened due to disasters like the Black Death.

In places besides Germany, convents were founded as retreats from the world for women of the upper classes. These were original projects funded by wealthy patrons, including other women. Among these was Countess Margaret of Flanders who established the monastery of Lille, while Val-Duchesse at Oudergern near Brussels was built with the wealth of Adelaide of Burgundy, Duchess of Brabant (1262).

Female houses differed from male Dominican houses in a lack of apostolic work for the women. Instead, the sisters chanted the Divine Office and kept all the monastic observances. Their lives were often much more strict than their brothers' lives. The sisters had no government of their own, but lived under the authority of the general and provincial chapters of the Order. They were compelled to obey all the rules and shared in all the applicable privileges of the Order. Like the Priory of Dartford, all Dominican nunneries were under the jurisdiction of friars. The friars served as their confessors, priests, teachers and spiritual mentors.

Women could not be professed to the Dominican religious life before the age of thirteen. The formula for profession contained in the Constitutions of Montargis Priory (1250) demands that nuns pledge obedience to God, the Blessed Virgin, their prioress and her successors according to the Rule of St. Augustine and the institute of the Order, until death. The clothing of the sisters consisted of a white tunic and scapular, a leather belt, a black mantle, and a black veil. Candidates to profession were tested to reveal whether they were actually married women who had merely separated from their husbands. Their intellectual abilities were also tested. Nuns were to be silent in places of prayer, the cloister, the dormitory, and refectory. Silence was maintained unless the prioress granted an exception for a specific cause. Speaking was allowed in the common parlor, but it was subordinate to strict rules, and the prioress, subprioress or other senior nun had to be present.

Because the nuns of the Order did not preach among the people, the need to engage in study was not as immediate or intense as it was for men. They did participate, however, in a number of intellectual activities. Along with sewing and embroidery, nuns often engaged in reading and discussing correspondence from Church leaders. In the Strassburg monastery of St. Margaret, some of the nuns could converse fluently in Latin. Learning still had an elevated place in the lives of these religious. In fact, Margarette Reglerin, a daughter of a wealthy Nuremberg family, was dismissed from a convent because she did not have the ability or will to learn.

As heirs of the Dominican priory of Poissy in France, the Dartford sisters were also heirs to a tradition of profound learning and piety. Sections of translations of spiritual writings in Dartford's library, such as Suso's Little Book of Eternal Wisdom and Laurent du Bois' La Somme le Roi, show that the "ghoostli" link to Europe was not lost in the crossing of the Channel. It survived in the minds of the nuns. Also, the nuns shared a unique identity with Poissy as a religious house founded by a royal house. The English nuns were proud of this heritage, and aware that many of them shared in England's great history as members of the noble class, as seen in the next chapter.

Devotion to the Virgin Mary was another very important aspect of Dominican spirituality, especially for female members. As an Order, the Dominicans believed that they were established through the good graces of Christ's mother, and through prayers she sent missionaries to save the souls of nonbelievers. All Dominicans sang the Little Office of the Blessed Virgin each day and saluted her as their advocate.

English Province

In England, the Dominican Province began at the second general chapter of the Dominican Order in Bologna during the spring of 1221. Dominic dispatched twelve friars to England under the guidance of their English prior, Gilbert of Fresney. They landed in Dover on August 5, 1221. The province came officially into being at its first provincial chapter in 1230.

The English Province was a component of the international Order from which it obtained its laws, direction, and instructions. It was also, however, a group of Englishmen. Its direct supervisors were from England, and the members of the English Province dwelt and labored in English cities, towns, villages, and roadways. English and European ingredients constantly came in contact. The international side of the province's existence influenced the national, and the national responded to, adapted, and sometimes constrained the international.

The first Dominican site in England was at Oxford, in the parishes of St. Edward and St. Adelaide. The friars built an oratory to the Blessed Virgin Mary and by 1265, the brethren, in keeping with their devotion to study, began erecting a school. Actually, the Dominican brothers likely began a school immediately after their arrival, as priories were legally schools. Information about the schools of the English Province is limited, but a few facts are known. Much of the information available is taken from visitation records. The "visitation" was a section of the province through which visitors to each priory could describe the state of its religious life and its studies to the next chapter. There were four such visits in England and Wales—Oxford, London, Cambridge and York. All Dominican students were required to learn grammar, old and new logic, natural philosophy and theology. Of all of the curricular areas, however, theology was the most important. This is not surprising when one remembers Dominic's zeal for it.

English Dominican mysticism in the late medieval period differed from European strands of it in that, whereas European Dominican mysticism tended to concentrate on ecstatic experiences of union with the divine, English Dominican mysticism's ultimate focus was on a crucial dynamic in one's personal relationship with God. This was an essential moral imitation of the Savior as an ideal for religious change, and as the means for reformation of humanity's nature as an image of divinity. This type of mysticism carried with it four elements. First, spiritually it emulated the moral essence of Christ's life. Second, there was a connection linking moral emulation of Christ's life and humanity's disposition as images of the divine. Third, English Dominican mysticism focused on an embodied spirituality with a structured love of fellow men at its center. Finally, the supreme aspiration of this mysticism was either an ethical or an actual union with God.

For English Dominican mystics, the mystical experience was not expressed just in one moment of the full knowledge of God, but in the journey of, or process of, faith. This then led to an understanding that was directed toward an experiential knowledge of divinity. It is important to understand, however, that for these mystics it was possible to pursue mystical life without the visions and voices that are usually associated with such a relationship with God. They experienced a mystical process that allowed them, in the end, to experience what they had already gained knowledge of through their faith only.

The center of all mystical experience is, of course, Christ. English Dominicans sought to gain a full knowledge of Christ through an imitation of His life. English mystics of all types tended to focus on the moral values that the events in Christ's life exemplified. This led to a "progressive understanding of the meanings of Scripture--literal, moral, allegorical, and anagogical"--that was contained within the mystical journey itself. From these considerations of Scripture comes the simplest way to imitate Christ: an emulation of the moral actions and attitudes that Jesus demonstrated in His earthly ministry becomes the most significant way to feel and have knowledge of God.

The English concentrated on the spirit of the events of Christ's life, not the liberality of events. They neither expected nor sought the appearance of the stigmata or any other physical manifestation. They wanted to create in themselves that environment that allowed Jesus to fulfill His divine mission, insofar as they were able. At the center of this environment was love: the love that Christ showed for humanity in becoming human. Christ's love reveals the mercy of God and His care for His creation. English Dominican mystics sought through this love to become images of God. Love led to spiritual growth that, in turn, reflected an increase in love for God and humanity. This increase in universal love allowed men's wills to conform to God's will, just as Christ's will submitted to the Father's will.

Concerning humanity as the image of Christ, English Dominican spirituality concentrated on the moral implications of image-bearing rather than the philosophical foundations of the imago Dei. The process of Christ's life, and the process of image-bearing, amends humanity to God's image. The idea of the "image of God" demonstrates both the ability of man to move toward God (as partakers in Christ's redeeming sacrifice), and that, on some level, man is always an image of God. As their love and knowledge of God grows and is sanctified by faith and experience, the image of God within man becomes ever more bright and clear.

Reference:

 This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Herbermann, Charles, ed. (1913). Catholic Encyclopedia. Robert Appleton Company.

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Snippet II:  Basilica of San Domenico, Bologna, Italy

Basilica of San Domenico  in Bologna Italy

The Basilica of San Domenico is one of the major churches in Bologna, Italy. The remains of Saint Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers (Dominicans), are buried inside the exquisite shrine Arca di San Domenico, made by Nicola Pisano and his workshop, Arnolfo di Cambio and with later additions by Niccolò dell'Arca and the young Michelangelo.

History

Dominic Guzman, on arriving in Bologna in January 1218, was impressed by the vitality of the city and quickly recognized the importance of this university town to his evangelizing mission. A convent was established at the Mascarella church by the Blessed Reginald of Orléans. As this convent soon became too small for their increasing number, the preaching Brothers moved in 1219 to the small church of San Nicolò of the Vineyards at the outskirts of Bologna. St. Dominic settled in this church and held here the first two General Chapters of the order (1220 and 1221). Saint Dominic died in this church on 6 August 1221. He was buried behind the altar of San Nicolò.

Between 1219 and 1243 the Dominicans bought all surrounding plots of land around the church. After the death of Saint Dominic, the church of San Nicolò was expanded and a new monastic complex was built between 1228 and 1240. The apsidal area of the church was demolished and the nave was extended and grew into the Basilica of Saint-Dominic, This church became the prototype of many other Dominican churches throughout the world.

The big basilica was divided in two parts:

• the front part, called “internal church”, was the church of the brothers. It was built in a protogothic style with a nave, two aisles and ogival vaults.
• the church for the faithful, called “external church”, with the simple columns and the trussed flat roof of the old church.

Both churches were divided by a ramp. The church was consecrated by Pope Innocent IV on 17 October 1251. On this occasion the crucifix by Giunta Pisano was shown for the first time to the faithful.

The remains of the saint were moved in 1233 from its place behind the altar to a simple marble sarcophagus, situated on the floor in the right aisle of the church for the faithful. Since most of the pilgrims, who came in great numbers to see the grave, were not able to see this shrine, hidden by so many people standing in front of it, the need was felt for a new shrine. In 1267 the remains of Saint Dominic were then moved from the simple sarcophagus into the new shrine, decorated with the main episodes from the life of the Saint by Nicola Pisano. Work would continue on this shrine for almost five centuries.

The church was enlarged and the two sections were modified in many ways in the course of the next centuries. New side chapels were built, the majority in the 15th century. A Roman-Gothic bell tower was added in 1313 (recently restored). The dividing wall between the two churches was finally demolished in the beginning of the 17th century. The choir was at the same time moved behind the altar. Between 1728 and 1732 the interior of the church was completely renewed by the architect Carlo Francesco Dotti, sponsored by the Dominican pope Benedict XIII, into its present-day Baroque style.

Early on the church began receiving many works of art from the faithful. This has grown into the present-day vast collection of exceptional art treasures created by some the greatest Italian artists, including Giunta Pisano, Nicola Pisano, Arnolfo di Cambio, Niccolò dell'Arca, Michelangelo, Iacopo da Bologna, Guido Reni, Guercino and Filippino Lippi.

Square and façade

 tombs of de’ Passeggeri; Raffaele Faccioli

The square in front of the church is paved with pebbles, as it was in medieval times. The square was used by the faithful to listen to the sermon from the preacher from the pulpit on the left corner of the church. It was also the original cemetery.

The column in the middle of the square is a brickwork column with the bronze statue of St Dominic (1627) and on the back of the square a column in marble, bricks and copper of the Madonna of the Rosary, after a design by Guido Reni (1632), commemorating the end of the plague in the city.

Behind the first column stands the tomb of Rolandino de’ Passeggeri by Giovanni (1305) and on the left, adjoining a house, the tomb of Egidio Foscarari (1289), enriched with an ancient Byzantine marble arch with relief works from the 9th century.

The Romanesque façade dates from 1240 and was restored in 1910 by the architect Raffaele Faccioli. In the center is a large, embroidered rose window. The lunette above the portal contains a copy (1921) of St Dominic blessing Bologna by Lucia Casalini-Torelli (1677–1762).

On the left side of the façade is the Lodovico Ghisilardi chapel in Renaissance style.It was built as an example of Vitruvian classicism by the architect Baldassarre Peruzzi around 1530.

Interior

Nave

The church consists of a central nave, two lateral aisles, several side chapels, a transept, a choir and an apse. The interior was completely renewed in Baroque style with refined elegance and well-balanced proportions by the architect Carlo Francesco Dotti (1678–1759). In the lunettes above the Ionic columns along the nave we can see 10 paintings, depicting episodes (true and untrue) in the history of the church. The first two are by Giuseppe Pedretti (1696–1778), the others by Vittorio Bigari (1692–1776).

 

Chapels on the right side

• St. Rose of Lima : the painting above the altar, portraying the Ecstasy of the Saint, is by Cesare Gennari. The altar-piece Virgin appearing to St. Hyacinth by Ludovico Carracci (now in the Louvre), used to stand here.
• St. Vincent Ferrer : the painting above the altar (St. Vincent brings a young boy back to life) is by Donato Creti (1731). On both sides of the chapel are two painting, representing the Miracles of the Saint, by Giuseppe Pedretti. The elegant stucco angels are by Angelo Pio (1690–1769), one of the best artists of his time.
• St Antoninus of Florence : The painting above the altar (The Lord and the Blessed Virgin Appearing to St. Antoninus and St. Francis) is by Pietro Facini (1562–1602), while the paintings on the side walls (Blessed Matteo Carreri and Blessed Stefania) are by Pietro Dardani (1728–1808).
• St. Andrew the Apostle : paintings of the Coming Martyrdom of the Apostle, Blessed Imelda and Blessed Giovanna are by Antonio Rossi (1700–1753)
• Madonna of Fevers: above the altar is the painting Sant’Emidio by Filippo Gargalli (1750–1835). The painting Slaughter of the Innocents by Guido Reni, now in Bologna’s Pinacoteca Nazionale, was once hung in this chapel.
• St Dominic’s chapel : this is the main chapel of the church. It has a square plan and a semi-circular apse, where the remains of the saint rest in the splendid Arca di San Domenico under the cupola. The chapel was built by the Bolognese architect Floriano Ambrosini, replacing the old gothic chapel from 1413, to match the splendour of the other existing chapels. It was decorated between 1614 and 1616 by important painters of the Bolognese School, Tiarini (1577–1688), Mario Righetti, Lionello Spada (1576–1622), Mastelletta (1575–1655), culminating in the fresco on the cupola of the apse St Dominic’s Glory, a masterpiece by Reni, painted between 1613 and 1615. The Theological and The Cardinal Virtues in the niches of the apse were painted by Giovanni Todeschi between 1617 and 1631. The bust in white marble by Carlo Pini (1946) represents the real face of Saint Dominic, modeled on the precise measurements performed on the saint’s skull.
• Chapel of St Pius V : the altar-piece is by Felice Torricelli (1667–1748).
• Chapel of St Hyacinth of Poland : with the painting A Miracle of the Saint by Antonio Muzzi.
• Chapel of St Catherine of Siena: with St Catherine’s Mystic Communion by Francesco Brizzi (1546–1625) above the altar.
• Chapel of St Catherine Virgin and Martyr: the painting above the altar, Mystical Marriage of St. Catherine, is an important panel and one of the last works by Filippino Lippi (1501–1503).

 

Chapels on the left side

• Chapel of St. Louis Bertrand : contains two canvases: (on the right) Blessed Pietro Geremia by Alessandro Tiarini and (on the left) St. Albert the Great by Clemente Bevilacqua (died 1754)
• Chapel of the Holy Blood has some important paintings : (on the right) Annunciation by Denis Calvaert (1540–1619), (above the central altar) St. Michael Archangel by Giacomo Francia (1484–1557), (on the left) St Martin de Porres by Renzo Magnanini, (in the big lunette) The Disputation of St Catherine Virgin and Martyr by Prospero Fontana
• Chapel of Blessed Benedict XI with the painting The Blessed is taken to Heaven by Felice Torelli (1667–1748)
• Rosary Chapel is the most prominent chapel on this side of the church. The vivacious fresco on the vault (the Assumption) and in the apse (Heaven and Earth praising the Madonna of the Rosary) were painted between 1655 and 1657 by Angelo Michele Colonna (1600–1687) and by Agostino Mitelli (1609–1660). The two choir stalls were designed by the architect Carlo Francesco Dotti in 1736 after the redesigning of the interior of the church. The altar was designed by the Bolognese architect Floriano Ambrosini (1557–1621). But the most important paintings in this large chapel are the famous Mysteries of the Rosary, finished in 1601. The most prominent artist of their time worked on the decoration : Lodovico Carracci (the Annunciation and the Visitation), Bartolomeo Cesi (the Nativity), Denis Calvaert (Presentation of Jesus in the Temple), the female artist Lavinia Fontana (Jesus among the Doctors and the Coronation of the Virgin), Bartolomeo Cesi (Christ in the garden), Ludovico Carracci (the Scourging and Christ falling under the Cross), Bartolomeo Cesi (the Crowning with Thorns, the Crucifixion and Pentecost), Guido Reni (the Resurrection), Domenichino (the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin).

Young Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart played on the organ in this chapel, while he was studying with padre Giovanni Battista Martini in 1769.

• Vestibule of the side door contains the marble tomb of Alessandro Tartagni (1477) by Francesco di Simone Ferrucci da Fiesole (1437–1493).
• Chapel of St Joseph : the canvas above the altar is Death of St. Joseph and St Anthony abbot by Giovanni Battista Bertusio(died 1644), and the paintings on the left (San Teresa di Gesù) and on the right (St Anthony of Padua) are by Giovanni Breviglieri.
• Chapel of St. Peter the Martyr : the painting above the altar Kneeling Saint is by Giuseppe Pedretti, while the paintings on the left (Sant’Agnese da Montepulciano) and on the right (St Catherine de Ricci) are by Pietro Dardani (1728–1808)
• Chapel of St Raymond of Peñafort contains the famous canvas the Saint plowing the Waves on his Mantle by Ludovico Carracci
• Chapel of Blessed Ceslaus with the painting the Blessed by Lucia Casalini-Torrelli

 

Right transept

There is a small chapel on the right side of the altar with a painting by the Baroque artist Bartolomeo Cesi and a canvas by Guercino St. Thomas Aquinas writing the Holy Sacrament (1662)

 

Left transept

• Chapel of the Holy Cross: On the wall is a marble slab, carved in 1731 by Giuseppe Maria Mazza, commemorating the death in 1272 of King Enzio of Sardinia, son of the Holy Roman Emperor Frederick II. He had been captured by the Bolognese Guelph forces in the Battle of Fossalta in 1249. The painting above the altar is Christ being laid down by Pier Francesco Cavazza (1667–1733), while on the right is the Assumption of the Madonna by Vincenzo Spisanelli (1595–1662).
• Chapel of St Michael the Archangel : Here on view is the imposing Crucifixion, the masterpiece by Giunta Pisano (mid-13th century). It is still much influenced by the Byzantine style and represents one of the best examples of 13th-century Italian painting. This crucifix has much influenced Cimabue, who would then slowly evolve into his own style. On the right side we find the marble monument, spanning the two chapels, dedicated to the Bolognese ruler Taddeo Pepoli (died 1347) (who added in 1340 a barrel span to the northern transept of this church). This monument was begun in the 14th century and only finished in the 16th century. The fresco on the left wall St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Benedict dates from the 14th century.
• Chapel of the Sacred heart: The papier-mâché bust of Ven. Serafino Capponi, a theologian (died 1615) is on the left side of the altar. Beneath the altar is the urn with the relics of James Griesinger, the Blessed James from Ulm (died 1491), who added most of the stained-glass windows to this church (now destroyed). He is also depicted on canvas in this chapel by Giacinto Bellini (1612–1660). The fresco Madonna with Child among the Saints is by an unknown Emilian artist at the end of the 13th century. Facing King Enzo’s monument is a fragment of a 14th-century fresco Face of St Thomas Aquinas

 

The choir

Left side of the choir

This monumental choir was moved behind the high altar in the 17th century. The original altar was a masterpiece decorated with basreliefs and nine sculptures by Giovanni di Balduccio (1330), a pupil of Giovanni Pisano. Now only the statue of St Peter the Martyr still exists and is on display in the City Museum. The present high altar was made by Alfonso Torreggiani (died 1764). In the middle of the golden altar-piece at the back of the apse, is the Adoration of the Magi by Bartolomeo Cesi, flanked by paintings (on its left side) of Saint Nicholas of Bari and (on its right side) of Saint Dominic. Below is the Miracle of the Bread by Vincenzo Spisanelli.

The 102 wooden choir stalls are an exquisite example of Renaissance carving by the Dominican friar Damiano da Bergamo. (1528–1530). Between 1541 and 1549 they were inlaid with intaglia by the same artist, using a series of drawings from a book by Giacomo Barozzi da Vignola, and carved by his brother Stefano da Bergamo. The work was finished by brother Bernardino da Bologna. These decorations display scenes from the Old Testament (on the right side) and from the New Testament (on the left side). Because of its extraordinary artistic value, this remarkable marquetry work was considered by its contemporaries as the eight wonder of the world. It is also noted in the Vite (IV,94) by Giorgio Vasari

The museum

The Story of San Girolomo, da Bergamo.

The church's small museum houses many important works of art and a wide collection of precious reliquaries, chalices and monstrances.

A small selection :

• The reliquary of Saint Louis IX, king of France, is of special interest as a most elaborate example in Gothic style of an unknown French goldsmith at the end of the 13th century. It was a gift to this church by king Philip IV of France, following the canonization of Louis IX in 1297.
• The remains of a terracotta Pietà (1495) by the architect, painter and sculptor Baccio da Montelupo (mentioned by Vasari in his Vite)
• A polychromed terracotta Bust of Saint Dominic by Niccolò dell'Arca (1474)
• The remains of a fresco of Madonna with Child and Saint Dominic by an unknown Bolognese artist (possibly Cristoforo da Bologna) (second half of the 14th century)
• Madonna of the Velvet, tempera on wood by Lippo Dalmasio (c. 1390)
• The Paschal Lamb, an oil painting on wood sometimes ascribed to Giorgio Vasari
• Madonna with Child, Saint Dominic and Vincenzo Ferreri (c. 1773), one of the best works of by Ubaldo Gandolfi(1728–1781)
• Several valuable intarsias by fra Damiano da Bergamo, such as The Story of San Girolomo, and geometrical fugures.

Convent and library

The square-shaped convent next door is also worth visiting for its cloisters (14th, 15th and 16th centuries) with various tombstones and memorial tablets in its walls. The chapter room displays a precious fresco of Saint Dominic from the 14th century. It is the oldest known image of the saint. On the ground floor of the old dormitory is St Dominic’s cell, so called because it is an original cell from his time and possibly the cell (or a similarly one) where he died. Some original letters of introduction and his canonization bull of 9 July 1234 are here on display. At the front of the library is a fresco Madonna with benedictory Child (by an unknown artist).

The three-aisled Renaissance library, planned like a basilica and built by Gaspare Nadi, dates back to 1469 and contains many precious books. Part of the library complex is now the seat of the faculty of philosophy and theology, run by the Dominicans. Another part is used as a conference room with a wooden-paneled coffer ceiling. At its end hangs the Baroque painting Ecstasy of St. Thomas Aquinas by Marcantonio Franceschini.

References and sources

References

• Konstantinos Staikos (2012), History of the Library in Western Civilization: From Petrarch to Michelangelo, New Castle, DE: Oak Knoll Press, ISBN 9781584561828

Sources

• Alce, Venturino. The Basilica of Saint-Dominic in Bologna. Studio Domenicano. ISBN 88-7094-298-8.
• Museo della Basilica di S. Domenico. Bologna: Tipoarte. 1997.
• Giubelli, Giorgio. Illustrated Tourist Guide of Bologna.
• Bologna, Monumental Art Guide. Bologna: Italcards. ISBN 88-7193-622-1.

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FEATURED BOOK

THE MYSTICAL CITY OF GOD

Mystical City of God, the miracle of His omnipotence and the abyss of His grace the divine history and life of the
Virgin Mother of God our Queen and our Lady, most holy Mary expiatrix of the fault of eve and mediatrix of grace.
Manifested to Sister Mary of Jesus, Prioress of the convent of the Immaculate Conception in Agreda, Spain. For new
enlightenment of the world, for rejoicing of the Catholic Church, and encouragement of men. Completed in 1665.

THE DIVINE HISTORY AND LIFE
OF THE VIRGIN MOTHER OF GOD

Venerable Mary of Agreda

Translated from the Spanish by  Reverend George J. Blatter

1914, So. Chicago, Ill., The Theopolitan; Hammond, Ind., W.B. Conkey Co., US..

IMPRIMATUR:  +H.J. Alerding Bishop of Fort Wayne

Translation from the Original Authorized Spanish Edition by Fiscar Marison
(George J. Blatter). Begun on the Feast of the Assumption 1902, completed 1912.

This work is published for the greater Glory of Jesus Christ through His most
Holy Mother Mary and for the sanctification of the Church and her members.

Book 3, Chapter 2

THE INCARNATION OF THE SON OF GOD

Thereupon his Majesty announced to all the other angels that the time of the Redemption had come and that He had commanded it to be brought to the world without delay; for already, in their own presence, the most holy Mary had been prepared and adorned to be his Mother, and had been exalted to the supreme dignity. The heavenly spirits heard the voice of their Creator, and with incomparable joy and thanksgiving for the fulfillment of his eternal and perfect will, they intoned new canticles of praise, repeating therein that hymn of Sion: “Holy, holy, holy art thou, God and Lord Sabaoth (Is. 6, 3). Just and powerful art Thou, Lord our God, who livest in the highest (Ps. 112, 5) and lookest upon the lowly of the earth. Admirable are all thy works, most high and exalted in thy designs.”

The supernal prince Gabriel, obeying with singular delight the divine command and accompanied by many thousands of most beautiful angels in visible forms, descended from the highest heaven. The appearance of the great prince and legate was that of a most handsome youth of rarest beauty; his face emitted resplendent rays of light, his bearing was grave and majestic, his advance measured, his motions composed, his words weighty and powerful, his whole presence displayed a pleasing, kindly gravity and more of godlike qualities than all the other angels until then seen in visible form by the heavenly Mistress. He wore a diadem of exquisite splendor and his vestments glowed in various colors full of refulgent beauty. Enchased on his breast, he bore a most beautiful cross, disclosing the mystery of the Incarnation, which He had come to announce. All these circumstances were calculated to rivet the affectionate attention of the most prudent Queen.

The whole of this celestial army with their princely leader holy Gabriel directed their flight to Nazareth, a town of the province of Galilee, to the dwelling place of most holy Mary. This was an humble cottage and her chamber was a narrow room, bare of all those furnishings which are wont to be used by the world in order to hide its own meanness and want of all higher goods. The heavenly Mistress was at this time fourteen years, six months and seventeen days of age; for her birthday anniversary fell on the eighth of September and six months seventeen days had passed since that date, when this greatest of all mysteries ever performed by God in this world, was enacted in Her.

The bodily shape of the heavenly Queen was well proportioned and taller than is usual with other maidens of her age; yet extremely elegant and perfect in all its parts. Her face was rather more oblong than round, gracious and beautiful, without leanness or grossness; its complexion clear, yet of a slightly brownish hue; her forehead spacious yet symmetrical; her eyebrows perfectly arched; her eyes large and serious, of incredible and ineffable beauty and dovelike sweetness, dark in color with a mixture tending toward green; her nose straight and well shaped; her mouth small, with red–colored lips, neither too thin nor too thick. All the gifts of nature in Her were so symmetrical and beautiful, that no other human being ever had the like. To look upon Her caused feelings at the same time of joy and seriousness, love and reverential fear. She attracted the heart and yet restrained it in sweet reverence; her beauty impelled the tongue to sound her praise, and yet her grandeur and her overwhelming perfections and graces hushed it to silence. In all that approached Her, She caused divine effects not easily explained; She filled the heart with heavenly influences and divine operations, tending toward the Divinity.

Her garments were humble and poor, yet clean, of a dark silvery hue, somewhat like the color of ashes, and they were arranged and worn without pretense, but with the greatest modesty and propriety. At the time when, without her noticing it, the embassy of heaven drew nigh unto Her, She was engaged in the highest contemplation concerning the mysteries which the Lord had renewed in Her by so many favors during the nine receding days. And since, as we have said above, the Lord himself had assured Her that his Onlybegotten would soon descend to assume human form, this great Queen was full of fervent and joyful affection in the expectation of its execution and inflamed with humble love, She spoke in her heart: “Is it possible that the blessed time has arrived, in which the Word of the eternal Father is to be born and to converse with men? (Brauch 10, 38). That the world should possess Him? That men are to see Him in the flesh? (Is. 40.5). That his inaccessible light is to shine forth to illumine those who sit in darkness? (Is. 9, 2). O, who shall be worthy to see and know Him! O, who shall be allowed to kiss the earth touched by his feet!”

“Rejoice, ye heavens, and console thyself, O earth (Ps. 95, 11); let all things bless and extol Him, since already his eternal happiness is nigh! O children of Adam, afflicted with sin, and ye creatures of my Beloved, now shall you raise your heads and throw off the yoke of your ancient servitude! (Is. 14, 25). O, ye ancient Forefathers and Prophets, and all ye just, that are detained in limbo and are waiting in the bosom of Abraham, now shall you be consoled and your much desired and long promised Redeemer shall tarry no longer! (Agg. 2, 8). Let us all magnify Him and sing to Him hymns of praise! O who shall be the slave of Her, whom Isaias points out as his Mother (Is. 7, 4); O Emmanuel, true God and Man! O key of David, who art to unlock heaven! (Is. 22, 22). O eternal Wisdom! O Lawgiver of the new Church! Come, come to us, O Lord, and end the captivity of thy people; let all flesh see thy salvation!” (Is. 40, 5).

In order that the mystery of the Most High might be fulfilled, the holy archangel Gabriel, in the shape described in the preceding chapter and accompanied by innumerable angels in visible human forms and resplendent with incomparable beauty, entered into the chamber, where most holy Mary was praying. It was on a Thursday at six o’clock in the evening and at the approach of night. The great modesty and restraint of the Princess of heaven did not permit Her to look at him more than was necessary to recognize him as an angel of the Lord. Recognizing him as such, She, in her usual humility, wished to do him reverence; the holy prince would not allow it; on the contrary he himself bowed profoundly as before his Queen and Mistress, in whom he adored the heavenly mysteries of his Creator. At the same time he understood that from that day on the ancient times and the custom of old whereby men should worship angels, as Abraham had done (Gen. 38, 2), were changed. For as human nature was raised to the dignity of God himself in the person of the Word, men now held the position of adopted children, of companions and brethren of the angels, as the angel said to Evangelist Saint John, when he refused to be worshipped (Apoc. 19, 10).

The holy archangel saluted our and his Queen and said: “Ave gratia plena, Dominus tecum, benedicta tu in mulieribus” (Luke 1, 28). Hearing this new salutation of the angel, this most humble of all creatures was disturbed, but not confused in mind (Luke 1, 29). This disturbance arose from two causes: first, from her humility, for She thought herself the lowest of the creatures and thus in her humility, was taken unawares at hearing Herself saluted and called the “Blessed among women;” secondly, when She heard this salute and began to consider within Herself how She should receive it, She was interiorly made to understand by the Lord, that He chose Her for his Mother, and this caused a still greater perturbance, having such an humble opinion of Herself. On account of this perturbance the angel proceeded to explain to Her the decree of the Lord, saying: “Do not fear, Mary, for thou hast found grace before the Lord (Luke 1, 30); behold thou shalt conceive a Son in thy womb, and thou shalt give birth to Him, and thou shalt name Him Jesus; He shall be great, and He shall be called Son of the Most High,” and the rest as recorded of the holy archangel.

Our most prudent and humble Queen alone, among all the creatures, was sufficiently intelligent and magnanimous to estimate at its true value such a new and unheard of sacrament; and in proportion as She realized its greatness, so She was also moved with admiration. But She raised her humble heart to the Lord, who could not refuse Her any petition, and in the secret of her spirit She asked new light and assistance by which to govern Herself in such an arduous transaction; for, as we have said in the preceding chapter, the Most High, in order to permit Her to act in this mystery solely in faith, hope and charity, left Her in the common state and suspended all other kinds of favors and interior elevations, which She so frequently or continually enjoyed. In this disposition She replied and said to holy Gabriel, what is written in saint Luke: “how shall this happen, that I conceive and bear; since I know not, nor can know, man?” At the same time She interiorly represented to the Lord the vow of chastity, which She had made and the espousal, which his Majesty had celebrated with Her.

The holy prince Gabriel replied (Luke 1, 24): “Lady, it is easy for the divine power to make Thee a Mother without the cooperation of man; the Holy Spirit shall remain with Thee by a new presence and the virtue of the Most High shall overshadow Thee, so that the Holy of holies can be born of Thee, who shall himself be called the Son of God. And behold, thy cousin Elisabeth has likewise conceived a son in her sterile years and this is the sixth month of her conception; for nothing is impossible with God. He that can make her conceive, who was sterile, can bring it about, that Thou, Lady, be his Mother, still preserving thy virginity and enhancing thy purity.

With these and many other words the ambassador of heaven instructed the most holy Mary, in order that, by the remembrance of the ancient promises and prophecies of holy Writ, by the reliance and trust in them and in the infinite power of the Most High, She might overcome her hesitancy at the heavenly message. But as the Lady herself exceeded the angels in wisdom, prudence and in all sanctity, She withheld her answer, in order to be able to give it in accordance with the divine will and that it might be worthy of the greatest of all the mysteries and sacraments of the divine power. She reflected that upon her answer depended the pledge of the most blessed Trinity, the fulfillment of his promises and prophecies, the most pleasing and acceptable of all sacrifices, the opening of the gates of paradise, the victory and triumph over hell, the Redemption of all the human race, the satisfaction of the divine justice, the foundation of the new law of grace, the glorification of men, the rejoicing of the angels, and whatever was connected with the Incarnation of the Onlybegotten of the Father and his assuming the form of servant in her virginal womb (Philip 2, 7)

A great wonder, indeed, and worthy of our admiration, that all these mysteries and whatever others they included, should be intrusted by the Almighty to an humble Maiden and made dependent upon her fiat. But befittingly and securely He left them to the wise and strong decision of this courageous Woman (Prov. 31, 11), since She would consider them with such magnanimity and nobility, that perforce his confidence in Her was not misplaced. The operations, which proceed within the divine Essence, depend not on the cooperation of creatures, for they have no part in them and God could not expect such cooperations for executing the works ad intra; but in the works ad extra and such as were contingent, among which that of becoming man was the most exalted, He could not proceed without the cooperation of most holy Mary and without her free consent. For He wished to reach this acme of all the works outside Himself in Her and through Her and He wished that we should owe this benefit to this Mother of wisdom and our Reparatrix.

Therefore this great Lady considered and inspected profoundly this spacious field of the dignity of Mother of God (Prov. 21, 16) in order to purchase it by her fiat; She clothed Herself in fortitude more than human, and She tasted and saw how profitable was this enterprise and commerce with the Divinity. She comprehended the ways of his hidden benevolence and adorned Herself with fortitude and beauty. And having conferred with Herself and with the heavenly messenger Gabriel about the grandeur of these high and divine sacraments, and finding herself in excellent condition to receive the message sent to Her, her purest soul was absorbed and elevated in admiration, reverence and highest intensity of divine love. By the intensity of these movements and supernal affections, her most pure heart, as it were by natural consequence, was contracted and compressed with such force, that it distilled three drops of her most pure blood, and these, finding their way to the natural place for the act of conception, were formed by the power of the divine and holy Spirit, into the body of Christ our Lord. Thus the matter, from which the most holy humanity of the Word for our Redemption is composed, was furnished and administered by the most pure heart of Mary and through the sheer force of her true love. At the same moment, with a humility never sufficiently to be extolled, inclining slightly her head and joining her hands, She pronounced these words, which were the beginning of our salvation: “Fiat mihi secundum verbum tuum’’ (Luke 1, 31).

At the pronouncing of this “fiat,” so sweet to the hearing of God and so fortunate for us, in one instant, four things happened. First, the most holy body of Christ our Lord was formed from the three drops of blood furnished by the heart of most holy Mary. Secondly, the most holy soul of the same Lord was created, just as the other souls. Thirdly, the soul and the body united in order to compose his perfect humanity. Fourthly, the Divinity united Itself in the Person of the Word with the humanity, which together became one composite being in hypostatical union; and thus was formed Christ true God and Man, our Lord and Redeemer. This happened in springtime on the twenty–fifth of March, at break or dawning of the day, in the same hour, in which our first father Adam was made and in the year of the creation of the world 5199, which agrees also with the count of the Roman Church in her Martyrology under the guidance of the Holy Ghost. This reckoning is the true and certain one, as was told me, when I inquired at command of my superiors.


 Conformable to this the world was created in the month of March, which corresponds to the beginning of creation. And as the works of the Most High are perfect and complete (Deut. 32, 4), the plants and trees come forth from the hands of his Majesty bearing fruit, and they would have borne them continually without intermission, if sin had not changed the whole nature. The divine Child began to grow in the natural manner in the recess of the womb, being nourished by the substance and the blood of its most holy Mother, just as other men; yet it was more free and exempt from the imperfections, to which other children of Adam are subject in that place and period. For from some of these, namely those that, are accidental and unnecessary to the substance of the act of generation, being merely effects of sin, the Empress of heaven was free. She was also free from the superfluities caused by sin, which in other women are common and happen naturally in the formation, sustenance and growth of their children. For the necessary matter, which is proper to the infected nature of the descendants of Eve and which was wanting in Her, was supplied and administered in Her by the exercise of heroic acts of virtue and especially by charity. By the fervor of her soul and her loving affections the blood and humors of her body were changed and thereby divine Providence provided for the sustenance of the divine Child. Thus in a natural manner the humanity of our Redeemer was nourished, while his Divinity was recreated and pleased with her heroic virtues. Most holy Mary furnished to the Holy Ghost, for the formation of this body, pure and limpid blood, free from sin and all its tendencies. And whatever impure and imperfect matter is supplied by other mothers for the growth of their children was administered by the Queen of heaven most pure and delicate in substance. For it was built up and supplied by the power of her loving affections and her other virtues. In a like manner was purified whatever served as food for the heavenly Queen. For, as She knew that her nourishment was at the same time to sustain and nourish the Son of God, She partook of it with such heroic acts of virtue, that the angelic spirits wondered how such common human actions could be connected with such supernal heights of merit and perfection in the sight of God.

Thus adorned and deified by the Divinity and its gifts, the most holy soul of Christ our Lord proceeded in its operations in the following order: immediately it began to see and know the Divinity intuitively as It is in Itself and as It is united to his most holy humanity, loving It with the highest beatific love and perceiving the inferiority of the human nature in comparison with the essence of God. The soul of Christ humiliated itself profoundly, and in this humility it gave thanks to the immutable being of God for having created it and for the benefit of the hypostatic union, by which, though remaining human, it was raised to the essence of God. It also recognized that his most holy humanity was made capable of suffering, and was adapted for attaining the end of the Redemption. In this knowledge it offered itself as the Redeemer in sacrifice for the human race (Ps. 39, 8), accepting the state of suffering and giving thanks in his own name and in the name of mankind to the eternal Father. He recognized the composition of his most holy humanity, the substance of which it was made, and how most holy Mary by the force of her charity and of her heroic virtues, furnished its substance. He took possession of this holy tabernacle and dwelling; rejoicing in its most exquisite beauty, and, well pleased, reserved as his own property the soul of this most perfect and most pure Creature for all eternity. He praised the eternal Father for having created Her and endowed Her with such vast graces and gifts: for having exempted Her and freed Her from the common law of sin, as his Daughter, while all the other descendants of Adam have incurred its guilt (Rom. 5, 18). He prayed for the most pure Lady and for saint Joseph, asking eternal salvation for them. All these acts, and many others, were most exalted and proceeded from Him as true God and Man. Not taking into account those that pertain to the beatific vision and love, these acts and each one by itself, were of such merit that they alone would have sufficed to redeem infinite worlds, if such could exist.

Even the act of obedience alone, by which the most holy humanity of the Word subjected itself to suffering and prevented the glory of his soul from being communicated to his body, was abundantly sufficient for our salvation. But although this sufficed for our salvation, nothing would satisfy his immense love for men except the full limit of effective love (John 13, 1); for this was the purpose of his life, that He should consume it in demonstrations and tokens of such intense love, that neither the understanding of men nor of angels was able to comprehend it. And if in the first instant of his entrance into the world He enriched it so immeasurably, what treasures, what riches of merits must He have stored up for it, when He left it by his Passion and Death on the cross after thirty–three years of labor and activity all divine! O immense love! O charity without limit! O mercy without measure! O most generous kindness! and, on the other hand, O ingratitude and base forgetfulness of mortals in the face of such unheard of and such vast benefaction! What would have become of us without Him? How much less could we do for this our Redeemer and Lord, even if He had conferred on us but small favors, while now we are scarcely moved and obliged by his doing for us all that He could? If we do not wish to treat as a Redeemer Him, who has given us eternal life and liberty, let us at least hear Him as our Teacher, let us follow Him as our Leader, as our guiding light, which shows us the way to our true happiness.

These operations of Christ our Lord in the first instant of his conception were followed, in another essential instant, by the beatific vision of the Divinity, which we have mentioned in the preceding chapter (No. 139); for in one instant of time many instants of essence can take place. In this vision the heavenly Lady perceived with clearness and distinction the mystery of the hypostatic union of the divine and the human natures in the person of the eternal Word, and the most holy Trinity confirmed Her in the title and the rights of Mother of God. This in all rigor of truth She was, since She was the natural Mother of a Son, who was eternal God with the same certainty and truth as He was man. Although this great Lady did not directly cooperate in the union of the Divinity with the humanity, She did not on this account lose her right to be called the Mother of the true God; for She concurred by administering the material and by exerting her faculties, as far as it pertained to a true Mother; and to a greater extent than to ordinary mothers, since in Her the conception and the generation took place without the aid of a man. Just as in other generations the agents, which bring them about in the natural course, are called father and mother, each furnishing that which is necessary, without however concurring directly in the creation of the soul, nor in its infusion into the body of the child; so also, and with greater reason, most holy Mary must be called, and did call Herself, Mother of God for She alone concurred in the generation of Christ, true God and Man, as a Mother, to the exclusion of any other natural cause; and only through this concurrence of Mary in the generation, Christ, the Man–God, was born.

But She was especially persistent and fervent in her prayer to obtain guidance of the Almighty nor the worthy fulfillment of her office as Mother of the Onlybegotten of the Father. For this, before all other graces, Her humble heart urged Her to desire, and this was especially the subject of her solicitude, that She might be guided in all her actions as becomes the Mother of God. The Almighty answered Her: “My Dove, do not fear, for I will assist thee and guide thee, directing thee in all things necessary for the service of my onlybegotten Son.” With this promise She came to Herself and issued from her ecstasy, in which all that I have said had happened, and which was the most wonderful She ever had. Restored to her faculties, her first action was to prostrate Herself on the earth and adore her holiest Son, God and Man, conceived in her virginal womb; for this She had not yet done with her external and bodily senses and faculties. Nothing that She could do in the service of her Creator, did this most prudent Mother leave undone. From that time on She was conscious of feeling new and divine effects in her holiest soul and in her exterior and interior faculties. And although the whole tenor of her life had been most noble both as regards her body as her soul; yet on this day of the incarnation of the Word it rose to still greater nobility of spirit and was made more godlike by still higher reaches of grace and indescribable gifts.

WORDS OF THE QUEEN

The Virgin Mary speaks to Sister Mary of Agreda, Spain

My dearest daughter, many times I have confided and manifested to thee the love burning within my bosom: for I wish that it should be ardently re–enkindled within thy own, and that thou profit from the instruction, which I give thee. Happy is the soul, to which the Most High manifests his holy and perfect will; but more happy and blessed is he, who puts into execution, what he has learned. In many ways God shows to mortals the highways and pathways of eternal life: by the Gospels and the holy Scriptures, by the Sacraments and the laws of the holy Church, by the writings and examples of the saints, and especially, by the obedience due to the guidings of its ministers, of whom his Majesty said : “Whoever hears you, hears Me;” for obeying them is the same as obeying the Lord himself. Whenever by any of these means thou hast come to the knowledge of the will of God, I desire thee to assume the wings of humility and obedience, and, as if in ethereal flight or like the quickest sunbeam, hasten to execute it and thereby fulfill the divine pleasure.

Besides these means of instruction, the Most High has still others in order to direct the soul; namely, He intimates his perfect will to them in a supernatural manner, and reveals to them many sacraments. This kind of instruction is of many and different degrees; not all of them are common or ordinary to all souls; for the Lord dispenses his light in measure and weight (Wis. 11, 21). Sometimes He speaks to the heart and the interior feelings in commands; at others, in correction, advising or instructing: sometimes He moves the heart to ask Him; at other times He proposes clearly what He desires, in order that the soul may be moved to fulfill it; again He manifests, as in a clear mirror, great mysteries, in order that they may be seen and recognized by the intellect and loved by the will. But this great and infinite Good is always sweet in commanding, powerful in giving the necessary help for obedience, just in his commands, quick in disposing circumstances so that He can be obeyed, notwithstanding all the impediments which hinder the fulfillment of his most holy will.

In receiving this divine light, my daughter. I wish to see thee very attentive, and very quick and diligent in following it up in deed. In order to hear this most delicate and spiritual voice of the Lord it is necessary, that the faculties of the soul be purged from earthly grossness and that the creature live entirely according to the spirit; for the animal man does not perceive the elevated things of the Divinity (I Cor. 2, 14). Be attentive then to his secrets (Is. 34, 16) and forget all that is of the outside; listen, my daughter, and incline thy ear; free thyself from all visible things (Ps. 44, 11). And in order that thou mayest be diligent, cultivate love; for love is a fire, which does not have its effect until the material is prepared; therefore let thy heart always be disposed and prepared. Whenever the Most High bids thee or communicates to thee anything for the welfare of souls, or especially for their eternal salvation, devote thyself to it entirely; for they are bought at the inestimable price of the blood of the Lamb and of divine love. Do not allow thyself to be hindered in this matter by thy own lowliness and bashfulness; but overcome the fear which restrains thee, for if thou thyself art of small value and usefulness, the Most High is rich (I Pet. 1, 18), powerful, great, and by Himself performs all things (Rom. 10, 12). Thy promptness and affection will not go without its reward, although I wish thee rather to be moved entirely by the pleasure of thy Lord.

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Catholic Catechism 

PART ONE - THE PROFESSION OF FAITH

SECTION TWO -THE PROFESSION OF THE CHRISTIAN FAITH

               CHAPTER TWO - I BELIEVE IN JESUS CHRIST, THE ONLY SON OF GOD

ARTICLE 9  - "I BELIEVE IN THE HOLY CATHOLIC CHURCH" 

 

748 "Christ is the light of humanity; and it is, accordingly, the heart-felt desire of this sacred Council, being gathered together in the Holy Spirit, that, by proclaiming his Gospel to every creature, it may bring to all men that light of Christ which shines out visibly from the Church."¹³⁵ These words open the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution on the Church. By choosing this starting point, the Council demonstrates that the article of faith about the Church depends entirely on the articles concerning Christ Jesus. The Church has no other light than Christ's; according to a favorite image of the Church Fathers, the Church is like the moon, all its light reflected from the sun.

749 The article concerning the Church also depends entirely on the article about the Holy Spirit, which immediately precedes it. "Indeed, having shown that the Spirit is the source and giver of all holiness, we now confess that it is he who has endowed the Church with holiness."¹³⁶ The Church is, in a phrase used by the Fathers, the place "where the Spirit flourishes."¹³⁷
 
750 To believe that the Church is "holy" and "catholic," and that she is "one" and "apostolic" (as the Nicene Creed adds), is inseparable from belief in God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. In the Apostles' Creed we profess "one Holy Church" (Credo . . . Ecclesiam), and not to believe in the Church, so as not to confuse God with his works and to attribute clearly to God's goodness all the gifts he has bestowed on his Church.¹³⁸

 

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135 LG 1; cf. Mk 16:15.
136 Roman Catechism I,10,1.
137 St. Hippolytus, Trad. Ap. 35: SCh 11,118.
138 Roman Catechism I,10,22.

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RE-CHARGE:  Heaven Speaks to Young Adults

To all tween, teens and young adults, A Message from Jesus: "Through you I will flow powerful conversion graces to draw other young souls from darkness. My plan for young men and women is immense. Truly, the renewal will leap forward with the assistance of these individuals. Am I calling you? Yes. I am calling you. You feel the stirring in your soul as you read these words. I am with you. I will never leave you. Join My band of young apostles and I will give you joy and peace that you have never known. All courage, all strength will be yours. Together, we will reclaim this world for the Father. I will bless your families and all of your relationships. I will lead you to your place in the Kingdom. Only you can complete the tasks I have set out for you. Do not reject Me. I am your Jesus. I love you...Read this book, upload to your phones/ipads.computers and read a few pages everyday...and then Pay It Forward...

Reference

•   Recharge: Directions For Our Times. Heaven Speaks to Young Adults.  recharge.cc.

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