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PREACHING THE TRUTH IN LOVE  

Holy Rosary Province 01 June 2025
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In 1217, Dominic was in Rome. One night our Father had a vision: the apostles Peter and Paul approached him. Peter gave him a walking stick, symbol of authority and itinerancy, and Paul, his epistles. The two apostles tell St. Dominic: Go and preach, because this is the ministry to which you have been called (Constantine of Orvieto). St Dominic was above all a preacher and all his life is ordered to preaching for the salvation of souls. “St. Dominic loved preaching and from this fact his Order takes the name” (St. Francis of Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, Third part, no. 1).

Like Dominic and after Dominic, the Dominicans are preachers, followers of Christ the preacher (cf. St. Thomas Aquinas, STh, III, 42). The Dominicans not only preach. The Dominicans are preachers, that is, they live as preachers and preach Christ in deed and in word.  Our preaching is partly different from the preaching of others – Franciscans, Jesuits, Claretians, diocesan priests… Not better but different, that is distinct. Main reason: the essential elements of our charism and their combination: fraternal life, prayer and study; contemplation and apostolate. 

Close to their beginning, the Dominicans were given a title, namely, Veritas, or Truth - a title that has become, since then, a commitment: Proclaiming the truth about life, about faith, about action. Proclaiming it from the pulpit, in the classroom, through the spoken and written word, in dialogue with all. We proclaim, above all, the Truth, with a capital T, that is, Jesus as the Truth, the Truth that will make us free (Jn 8:32), free to love. Jesus is the Truth of God who is “the first truth (STh, I, 16, 5). “‘Redemption’ can only consist in the truth becoming recognizable in Jesus Christ” (Benedict XVI, Jesus of Nazareth, II, Holy Week, 2011, 194).

In our world, truth is often shaded, falsified and manipulated. In our social life (economic, political and cultural life), lies, deception, “fake news,” and hypocrisy abound. A new global order will not be possible without truth. Indeed, untruth is a kind of slavery. “Your truth? / No, the Truth, / and come with me to search for it. / Your truth, keep it to yourself”. (“¿Tu verdad?  No, la Verdad, / y ven conmigo a buscarla. / La tuya guárdatela” (Antonio Machado).

We are preachers of the truth, veritas! Preaching the truth entails the following: (1) To know the truth; (2) To say the truth, and (3) To do the truth in love).

 

  1. TO KNOW THE TRUTH.

We cannot preach the truth if we do not know it! To know it, we have to study – always. We all know that study is one of the essential elements of the Dominican charism. It is part of our family heritage.  Moreover, we have to be up-to-date: society evolves, new problems arise and new signs to be interpreted. Two characteristics of a good preacher: good content and good rapport with the audience and its needs (doctrine and empathy). Hence, we are told, we have to read daily the newspaper and the Bible.

Our study is, must be, a prayerful study, a study in God’s presence: “Sacrament and preaching lose their import and reality if prayer does not accompany them” (Jacques Ellul). Dominican study is contemplative and compassionate study, and ordered to preaching for the salvation of souls. Study is a continuing aid to our vocation, a means to purify the soul and fight temptations. It us a kind of contemplation. Studiousness (cf. II-II, 166) is a moral virtue connected with temperance: a middle way between curiosity and negligence. It awakens interest in the truth, that is, love for the truth. We acquire and keep the habit of studying by the repetition of acts, by studying every day.

To know the truth is to know Christ – and preach Christ: “It is not ourselves we preach, but Christ Jesus as Lord” (2 Cor 4:5). “Truth is not a thing we possess, but a Person by whom we must allow ourselves to be possessed” (Pontifical Council for Inter-Religious Dialogue, Dialogue and Proclamation, 1991, no. 49). We always remember that the Truth is Christ and him, and only him we preach (cf. Paul VI, Homily, Manila 29 November 1970; in Office of Readings, XIII Sunday of Ordinary Time, Second Reading). “It is a terrible sin against the Christian community to preach oneself, paralyzing in this way the spirit of Christ in ourselves, in pride (Thomas Mullaney, OP, Washington DC, 1961).

    We must know the truth of Sacred Scriptures, Christian Tradition and the Magisterium of the Church. The significant difference between our Father Dominic and the heretics was that these preached separated from the Church, which is our Mother and Teacher, too

 

  1. TO SAY THE TRUTH.

The essential purpose of human speech is the truth, for words are messengers of the truth, while lies are prostitution of words and sources of violence (cf. Eph 4:25). We make ourselves real by telling the truth” (Thomas Merton, No Man Is an Island, 1955). I remember the words of Hugh of St. Cher: “First, the bow is bent in study, then the arrow is released in preaching.”

We have to dare to say the truth, when it is prudent and just to say it: to keep silent out of cowardice or fear is not ethical; to keep quiet in the face of glaring injustice and violence and corruption is not apostolic. I remember the words of Cicero: “Truth is corrupted as much with lies as with silence and forgetfulness” (“La verdad se corrompe tanto con la mentira como con el silencio y el olvido”). St. Paul preached the whole truth: “I have never shrunk from announcing to you God’s design in its entirety” (Acts 20:27). St. Augustine: “If you believe what you like, in the gospels, and reject what you don’t like, it is not the gospel you believe but yourself.” I remember the words of famous evangelical pastor John MacArthur: “When I step into the pulpit, the expectation is that I’m a messenger of God. I speak on His behalf, not my own.” (Cf. Mk 6:7-13; Evangelii Gaudium, nos. 135-144). Yes, we have to say the whole truth humbly, but - as Bernanos said - without the pleasure of hurting.

We have to say the truth truthfully – and, as much as possible, elegantly! In the Prayer before Study of St. Thomas Aquinas: “Grant me a keen intellect, a strong memory, method and facility in learning, subtlety in learning, and elegance in speech.” Elegance in speech! Some time ago, I read this lovely story! There was a blind man, who begged for alms daily - seated on one side of the gate of the Church. On his right side, he placed a box for the alms, and on his left, a poster with this inscription: “I am a blind man. Please, help me!” The beggar got a few coins at the end of the day. Until one day a man passed by, who, after giving some alms to the blind man, got his poster and wrote something at its blank back. From then on, the box was filled at the end of every day. The blind man was able to recognize the person who put the message at the back of the poster, now its front: he was an expert in advertising and communication and a good person. One day he asked him: “What did you write on the back of my poster?” The man answered: “Just the truth: your message in a different way.” Next day the blind man asked a friend who passed by: “What is written on my poster?” The friend read: “Today is spring, and I cannot see it.”  Preaching Christ is always spring time, for He is the Crucified and Risen Lord! We Dominicans – some people say - tend to be in their preaching a bit too doctrinal perhaps and not sufficiently emotional! Dominic preached the Word effectively and affectively. We are reminded of Augustine’s condition: “Non intratur in veritatem nisi per caritatem” (One does not enter into the truth but through charity). 

 

  1. TO DO THE TRUTH IN LOVE.

St. Paul: “Speaking the truth in love” (Eph 4:15).

Our motto Veritas is Veritas in Misericordia. Illuminating words of Pope Benedict XVI: “Without truth, charity degenerates into sentimentality. Love becomes an empty shell, to be filled in an arbitrary way. In a culture without truth, this is the fatal risk facing love” (Caritas in Veritate, 3). Truth without love does not move others to love the truth. Don Quixote: “A knight is ashamed when his words are better than his deeds” (Un caballero se avergüenza de que sus palabras sean mejores que sus hechos - Miguel de Cervantes).

Truth and love: “It is good to proclaim your love in the morning and your truth in the watches of the night” (Ps 92:2). “And preach thee, too, as love knows how, by kindly deeds and virtuous life” (Hymn, Divine Office, Hours, Saturday). Our commitment to Veritas implies to know the truth of faith (orthodoxy) and to do the truth of life (orthopraxis). What matters most is orthopraxis, which means doing the truth in love. A Christian who knows his faith, but does not practice it in a substantial form is not a Christian, for a Christian follows Christ. Jesus came into the world, He tells us, “To bear witness to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears my voice” (Jn 18:37). After Christ, his followers are obliged to “bear witness to the truth” (Jm 18:37). Jesus said: “The man who lives by the truth comes out into the light” (Jn 3:21). St. Gregory the Great: Jesus says, “I am the good shepherd, I know my own, that is I love them; and my own know me, that is they love me; and those who love me are willing to follow me.” He adds: “Anyone who does not love the truth has not yet come to know it” (Office of Readings, 4th Sunday of Easter, 2nd Reading).   

St. Dominic inculcated two basic attitudes in the young Dominicans: first, he told them, accept the truth without fear; second, turn the truth into life in daily life: “A Dominican person studies in order that he may come to know the truth, that in knowing it he may love it, and that in loving it he may share it joyfully with those to whom he has been sent” (OP, Ratio Studiorum Generalis, RSG, 2016, 9).

Jesus told the Pharisees: “Even if you refuse to believe in me, at least believe in the work I do” (Jn 10: 38).  For all Christians, witnessing is the first form of evangelization (cf. John Paul II, RM, no. 42). Certainly, “Modern man listens more to witnesses than to teachers; and if he does listen to teachers, it is because they are witnesses” (Paul VI, EN, 41). Witnessing must also be the first form of preaching - the common form to all the branches of Dominicans.

The Dominicans, however, must go beyond this silent preaching – totally necessary always - to carry out their charism of preaching: we must preach the Word of God, by words, too. But our words ought not to be denied by our bad deeds – a life of counter-witnessing. Often I remind myself of these words from a second century Homily: “Why is the Lord’s name blasphemed? Because we say one thing and do another. When they (the unbelievers) hear the words of God on our lips, unbelievers are amazed at their beauty and power but when they see that those words have no effect on our lives, their admiration turns to scorn, and they dismiss such words as myths and fairy tales” (Homily written in the Second Century, in Office of Readings, 32nd Week, Thursday). Of course, we are also sinners and therefore should be humble and strive to be better and do better with God’s never-failing grace and love.  My professor of Christology (Washington DC, 1961), Fr. Mulleney, OP, commenting St. Thomas quoted the great commentator of Thomas, Cajetan: Christian preaching is not a theoretical knowledge, but ‘Verbum spirans amorem.” Knowledge, yes, but more like Christ; otherwise, a good preacher (better, a good speaker or orator), perhaps, but not a Christian preacher”.

St. Catherine of Siena writes that the reform of the Church must be done by holy and good shepherds in deed and in truth, not only with the sound of the word, because if it is said and not done, this would amount to nothing” (Letter, 291); “Be trumpeters of the incarnate Word, God’s Son, not only with your voice but with your deeds. Learn from the Master of Truth, who practiced virtue before he preached it. In this way you will produce fruit and be the channel through which God will pour his grace into the hearts of those who hear you” (Letter, 226).

We read in the Ratio Studiorum Generalis: “The Order of Preachers takes most seriously ‘the prophetic office by which the Gospel of Jesus Christ is proclaimed everywhere both by word and example’ (LCO, Fundamental Constitution, # 5). The Dominican ought to preach the Word “with grace and joy” (OP, RSG, 1).

After being ordained a Dominican priest, Bruno Cadoré was sent to Haiti, where poverty and violence reigned. Like the people, the brothers walking with them had a difficult time. There he was existentially convinced of the absolute need of witnessing: “It is evident that here [in Haiti] life precedes speeches” (Escuchar con Dios los latidos del mundo, 2019, p. 36). The former Master of the Order of Preachers adds:  The first and last preaching of the preacher is his or her life. We are itinerant preachers, that is, itinerant pilgrims as mendicants towards the Kingdom (Ibid. pp. 58 and 109). (Fray Cadoré speak of the real tension between the charism of itinerancy which is proper of the preacher, and the will to install or stablish himself in a place permanently and definitively (cf. Ib. 162). How true, I may add. Another tension of Dominican life: the balance between active and contemplative life. St. Thomas says that Christ lived a perfect life and therefore, it was a contemplative and active life. He writes: “That active life that is occupied in preaching and teaching others the contemplative truths is more perfect that the life that occupies itself of contemplation only: (STh, III, 40, 1 ad 2; cf. II-II, 25, 6 ad 5). Objectively, true. Subjectively? What matters most is love, the degree of love in our lives. St. Thomas, I a sure, agrees!

The first missionaries of our Province, the Province of Our Lady of the Rosary, to the Philippines, who are our founders (15 arrived in Manila on July 22, 1587, and 3 in Macau around the end of August, 1587) had signed a powerful Statement earlier in Mexico where we read: “We must preach through our lifestyle so that if our teaching of the doctrine does not move hearts, our lives will move all those who see us: this is the best way of teaching.”  Today, we are asked to do the same. (Cf. Ordenaciones Primordiales, ACP Valladolid, 1997, Apéndice XI, pp. 173-177).

 

CONCLUSION

Is preaching a tough job? Yes, but we are not alone and God called us and helps us. For this mountainous task of preaching, we have to prepare and pray continually. “A preacher who does not prepare himself and who does not pray is dishonest and irresponsible, a false prophet, a fraud, a shallow impostor” (Evangelii Gaudium, EG, 145, 151).

We recite daily a moving prayer invoking the Holy Spirit before the daily meditation: “Come, Holy Spirit, fill the hearts of your faithful, and kindle in them the fire of your love.” Every day, we pray for vocations and ask Jesus to send us holy and zealous preachers. 

Lord, may we be holy and zealous preachers! (FGB)

 

 

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01 June 2025
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