PREACHERS OF CHRIST BY THE PATH OF DOMINIC, AND WITH MARY
How beautiful upon the mountains, are the feet of one who brings good news (Is 52:7). As Dominicans, we bring good news! We are preachers: preachers of Christ by the Path Dominic and the help of Mary Mother of Preachers.
- PREACHERS OF DOMINIC
From the beginning of pour formation and through continuing formation through life, we learn about Dominican preaching. After all, we have two initials after our full names, namely OP, that is, Order of Preachers.
What is the goal of our Dominican charism or vocation? It is the salvation of persons and peoples – including our own salvation (charity begins at home and continues outside our individual home!).
What is the principal means to realize our vocation? The principal means is the ministry of preaching! From the rock of Christian faith sprout the other essential and concrete means of our charism, namely, prayer, study, community life – and, of course, the other religious observances. Rooted in faith, our preaching must be strengthened by communal and personal prayer, fed by constant contemplative study of the sacred truth, and flowing from an apostolic, fraternal community life.
As Dominicans, we are preachers by essence, not by accident: OP is not just after our name, not a title or a degree, but part of our name, that is, of our identity. No wonder that the first Dominicans, our brothers, itinerant preachers, did not return home during the day until they had preached at least a sermon to one person.
We are preachers of our Father St. Dominic, and, therefore, imitate his way of preaching, that is, a preaching centered more on good deeds that beautiful words; a preaching flowing from the experience of God in prayer and compassion; a preaching that, above all, moved more than entertained. Dominic was a great preacher mainly because he was a deeply contemplative person: he spoke well of God because he spoke with God.
We are preachers after Dominic, who talks with God or of God, “never asking for reward, he just talks about the Lord.” Our Father and Founder is for us the mirror of our life (LCO, 67).
After Dominic, we are missionary preachers. Remember that Our Father Dominic longed to preach the Good News to the non-believers – to the Cumans of his time. We are Dominican missionaries, members of the missionary Province of the Dominican Order, preaching the Gospel to peoples who do not know or do not know enough Jesus Christ, the Savior of the world, or the Church is not fully stablished.
- AFTER DOMINIC, PREACHERS OF CHRIST
As preachers, we are “sent” by Jesus to proclaim the Good News. The Risen Lord appears to the apostles and tells them: “As the Father sent me so I send you” (Jn 20:21). During his public life Jesus had told his disciples: “Whoever listens to you listens to me “(Lk 19:16). Following the apostles, the preachers give themselves completely to prayer and the ministry of the word (cf. Acts, 6:2-4). St Paul’s words keep ringing in the heart of the preacher: Wow to me if I do not preach the Gospel (1 Cor 9:16). The Word of God is like “a strong wine, and it does intoxicate.” “The one who makes his hearers drunk with the words of God will himself be made drunk with a draft of manifold blessings” (Humbert of Romans; quoted by Paul Murray OP, The New Wine of Dominican Spirituality. London: Burns & Oates, 2006, 134-135).
In the Middle Ages, two persons were described as “Alter Christus”, another Christ: Francis and Dominic. We never forget that we walk after Dominic to follow Christ - like Dominic. We are followers of Christ by the path of Dominic, an apostolic and evangelical man.
Our preaching ought to be the result, the effect of our whole Dominican life. What should the result or effect of our whole life? It should be the following of Christ: the following of Christ in an ever deeper and deeper way. This is, indeed, the overall goal of our life: a progressive closeness and intimacy, following and imitation of Christ, by the path of Dominic.
The end of all our devotions is our devotion to Christ – and the Blessed Trinity. The overall objective of our devotions in the plural (devotions to Mary and saints - veneration) is our devotion in the singular (devotion to the Blessed Trinity -worship). What St, Bernard applies to Mary, can be applied to all the saints: “The goal of our love to Mary is our love for Christ; the measure of our love of Mary is to love her without measure.” Therefore, our devotions to the saints, including our special devotion to Mary, Our Lady, point – like John the Baptist - to Jesus Christ, the Son of God, the only Way to salvation, to happiness, to love. St Paul advises us: “Whatever you do, in word or in deed, do everything in the name o the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through him” (Col 3:12-17).
- AFTER DOMINIC, DEVOTED TO MARY
As we all know well, our Father Dominic had a deep filial devotion to the Virgin Mary. He made his Marian devotion an essential element of Dominican life and spirituality.
How does the lovely Vitae Fratrum begin? First chapter: “How Our Lady obtained from her Son the Order of Preachers.” This way: Dominic is preaching the Good News in Languedoc, and at one moment he feels a bit helpless. Then Our Mother Mary appeared to him and told him: “Do not worry. Repeat the angelic salutation at the Annunciation of the Lord – Ave Maria. As the Hail Mary made my womb fertile so it will also make fertile the barren souls of the people.”
God said to St. Catherine: “Dominic was a light I gave to the world through Mary to destroy heresies” (In A. Gonzalez Fuente, El carisma de la vida dominicana. Salamanca: Ed. San Esteban, 1994, 306-307) Dominic was deeply devoted to Mother Mary. Through his journeys through Europe, he loved to recite Marian prayers: the Ave Maria, the Litany of Mary and the Salve Regina. Dominic placed his Order of Preachers under the patronage and protection of Mary. We find repeated, not only in our legends but also in the first documents of the Order, that Dominic and his companions “were at the service of God and the Virgin Mary” (quoted by A. Gonzalez Fuente, 307).
At the beginnings of the Order of Preachers, we see Mary as an essential part of Dominican Life: she accompanies the friars in their difficult journeys in prayer; she is with them, when they preach (we are told that once she wrote the sermon of a friar who went blanc and had no ideas); we find her with the friars, in particular, at the moment of their death. Our tradition – or is it a legend? (It is lovely anyway!) – says that in a sense it was Mary who “invented” the Dominican habit, at least part of it, the scapular, which was given by her to Blessed Reginald of Orleans.
Like all Christians, we are children of Mary, Jesus gave her to us at the foot of the Cross: “Behold your son” –Jesus said to Mary-, and “Behold your mother” – to John the Evangelist. For all Christians, Jesus is the Son of God and the Son of Mary. Among all Christians, we consecrated women and men, try to follow Christ in a fully dedicated way: to follow the poor, chaste and obedient Jesus; to follow and imitate him in a radical way. Mary, our Mother and protector continues telling us what she said to the servants at the Wedding of Cana: “Do whatever He tells you.”
Sor Cecilia narrates to us this wonderful story. Once, our Father Dominic had a vision: he saw a multitude of the blessed in heaven around the throne of the Lord, but he saw no Dominican, so Dominic was very sad. The Lord tells him not to be sad, just look at Mary. Mother Mary then opened her cape and there, under her extended cape sees a multitude of brethren and sisters. I learned this story, like mot Dominicans, in my Novitiate. Later on, when I was studying philosophy in our Convent of Avila, I had the surprise – a surprise – of my life. The surprise happened the first time I visited the church of the Carmelite Monastery of discalced men La Santa, where St. Teresa of Avila was born. In the Chapel to Saint Teresa, there are four paintings: two on each wall , on each side of the altar, all four with Our Lady as the protagonist: Our Lady with her open spread out cape. In one painting, she is with Dominicans under her cape; in another, with Jesuits under her cape; in the third, with Carmelites under her cape, and on the fourth painting, she is accompanied by Franciscans under her cape. Still, I strongly believe that Mary is very dear to us Dominicans and missionaries as we see not only in the life of our Father Dominic, but in the life of our Dominican saints and in the lives of the martyrs of our Province. Mary is our Patroness: her feast as Patroness is celebrated ion May 8.
Our response to Mary as our Mother and our Patroness is our devotion to her. Our devotion o Mary is basically filial love to Mary as the Mother of Jesus, the disciple of disciples, and our Mother. Furthermore, Mary is our unique intercessor before Christ. As our intercessor, she prays for us before Jesus: “They have no wine.” Mary is also the model of all disciples of Jesu.
As our model, Mary shows us the way to follow and imitate her Son, our Savior and Lord. Mary is not only the Mother of Jesus, she is also the perfect disciple: she bore Jesus in her womb, she lived with him; she shared her life at home with him and for him; she also shared, more than anyone else (she is Our Lady of Sorrows), his sufferings on the Cross. Happy the womb that ore you and the breasts you sucked, a woman shouted to Jesus, who answered: Still happier those who hear the word of God and keep it (Lk 11:27). Mary is also the first among Jesus’ disciples to hear the word of God and put it into practice. Mary was “full of grace,” poor in spirit, trustful, faithful and prayerful. She was totally obedient: Fiat, Let it be! She was boundlessly grateful: My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord.
Mary is our best model to imitate Jesus. Let us not forget that the end of our devotion to Mary, the first among the saints, is to follow her Son. Our Dominican and missionary devotion to Mary is centered on the Rosary of Mary. Through the Dominican Rosary, by the hand of Mary, we go to the school of Mary – as Pope John Paul II told us – to be able to “learn” Jesus, to discover his secrets and to understand his message. We also remember that the Rosary is, particularly for us Dominicans, a contemplative prayer, a form of Christo-centric contemplation (See John Paul II, Rosarium Virginis Mariae. Vatican: October 2002, nos. 12 and 14)
It is said of Fr. Lagrange, the great biblical scholar that he did three things every day: “Study the Bible, read the newspaper, and pray the Rosary.”
- MARY, MOTHER OF PREACHERS
Mary is our model, in particular, as the Preacher, as Mary the Preacher! During the first half of the 17th century, one invocation was added to the Dominican Litany: Mary, Queen of Preachers. (See Guy Bedouelle, O. P., La fuerza de la palabra: Domingo de Guzman. Salamanca: Ed. San Esteban, 1987, 292).
What is Mary, the Preacher, proclaiming to us, preachers? Mary’s essential sermons to us: “Do whatever He tells you.” Mary continues speaking to us through her life of holiness and simplicity: “Fiat” or ‘Let it be done according to your word’; “Magnificat: ‘My soul proclaims the greatness of the Lord, my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked with favor on his lowly servant, he has scattered the proud in their conceit, he has cast down the mighty from their thrones, and has lifted up the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things and the rich he has sent away empty’. As preachers, like Mary, like Dominic, we are asked to be on the side of the poor, the sick, and the marginalized, the “little ones” of Jesus.
In a letter to the Dominican Order, 1946, Pope Pius XII, said that the mission of the Order is a continuation of the mission of Mary. How does he explain this? Pius XII states: As Mary gave flesh to the Son of God - to the Word of God - so that He would be known by all peoples, likewise the preacher through his/her word – written or spoken – give body to the divine Truth so that men and women may know it and witness it. The Pope concluded: “This maternal honor belongs to you in a special manner. Keep your name. Keep your mission. May none forget through laziness or fear your duty to preach” (Pius XII, quoted by A. Gonzalez Fuente, 315).
In Vita Consecrata (1994), Pope John Paul II explains beautifully how the Transfiguration of Our Lord symbolizes religious life (in in a particular way, our Dominican life, for we are contemplative-active): We go “up the mountain” to contemplate – to experience God in an intimate manner. Different voices in our Order of Preachers are telling us that we need mystics today! “We need the voices of the mystics who bring to us the news from the high mountains of what they have heard and perceived in their hours of intimacy with God” (Sr. Lucia Caram, O. P., 2008). O love that is my God, set me afire (St. Augustine, Confessions).
Afterwards, we go “We go up the mountain to experience God’s love: down the mountain” to do apostolic work (See Vita Consecrata, no. 14.) At times, the preacher might be tempted – like Peter – to stay on the mountain, in the lovely silence of the mountain of prayer; but he or she has to go down the mountain. St. Augustine tells Peter – and us: “Come down, Peter! Preach the word of God, be insistent both when it is timely and when it is not; reprove, exhort, give encouragement using all your forbearance and ability to teach” (quoted in VC, no. 75). We go down the mountain to proclaim to the world that Jesus lives, that we have met him: I have seen the Lord!
Those thoughts are beautiful things to say, but our life is at times a bit rough and difficult: too much work, too tired, too lonely, and too loaded! Jesus tells us then: “Come to me, all of you who are tired from carrying heavy loads and I will give you rest” (Mt 11:28). Jesus says to us: “My yoke is easy” (Mt 11:29). Commenting verse 29, W. Barclay writes: “The word easy is in Greek chrestos, which can mean well-fitting.” The word is used particularly to the yoke of the ox that needed –to work well and painlessly – a well-fitted yoke. Jesus says: “My yoke fits well,” meaning this: “The life I give you is not a burden to gall you: your task is made to measure to fit you.” We know that, as St Augustine says, Love makes every burden easy.
CONCLUSION
And to conclude! I remember a story from the life of St. Hyacinth of Poland. Once the Tartars invaded Krakow, Poland, and were ready to attack the Dominican Convent there. The Prior then was San Jacinto de Polonia. When Jacinto heard the bad news, he rushed to the Church to get the Blessed Sacrament and hide it from the invaders. As he was leaving the Church, the statue of Our Lady spoke to him: “Please, take me with you.” It was a huge statue, very heavy so the saint could not lift it up. The statue of Our Lady spoke to him again: “Do not worry; I will lighten your load.” St Hyacinth was able to leave the Church with the Blessed Sacrament on one hand and the bid statue of Our Lady on the other. He was always - like Dominic – a wonderful preacher, a great devotee of Our Lady, a true son of Mother Mary, who lightened his load – and will lighten ours, too.
We are Dominicans, that is, preachers, brothers and sisters, preachers of Mary. Indeed, friends, how beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of one who brings Good News. Let us continue bringing the Good News of peace to the world. Let us go on telling our world of Jesus’ love! (FGB, OP)