August 4

St. Dominic, Founder Of The Order Of Preachers.

Preparation. - St. Dominic was chosen by God as an instrument of His mercies. In the first place, he worked at his perfection by penance and mental prayer, and secondly, he devoted himself to the salvation of others by preaching the truths of faith, and especially the devotion to Mary. We shall seriously examine whether, like this great saint, we strive to join prayer and action, so as to accomplish the precept of constant prayer. “It behooveth always to pray and not to faint” (Luke 18. 1).

I. St. Dominic’s Penance And Mental Prayer

From his very infancy Dominic began a penitential life and continued it until his death. He fasted, watched, slept on boards, took the discipline, scourging himself three times every night. He constantly wore around his loins an iron belt, and on his back a rough hair-shirt, which caused him ceaseless pain. He never changed his mode of life in his travels and preaching, and not even in his old age. And nevertheless, he was always cheerful and amiable, so true it is that the more sacrifices we make in order to serve God, the greater the interior delights with which we are rewarded.

And whence besides did our saint draw the delights he enjoyed? From his assiduous mental prayer, in which he found his earthly paradise. During his apostolic journeys, he would allow his companions to walk ahead of him, so that he might be al one and more easily converse with God dwelling in our souls. On his return, often with blistered feet, he would go and spend several hours before the Blessed Sacrament. He would even spend there whole nights, sometimes with his arms stretched out in the form of a cross, at others prostrate on the floor, and at other times again, multiplying with the deepest respect his bows and genuflections.

Were we only to know, as St. Dominic, the depth of our corruption, how ardently we would pray and mortify ourselves without ceasing, as he did! We would be ever watchful over ourselves, and would retrench from our sense, our imaginations and our evil propensities, whatever flatters and strengthens them, and we would earnestly supplicate the Lord to direct us, to defend and support us. But, alas! our presumption persuades us that we have nothing to fear; thence does our sloth in self-conquest originate, as also our effeminate ways, our lack of the spirit of faith and prayer, which would enable us, as it did the saints, to rise to the summit of solid virtue.

O my God, put an end to my hesitations, to my carelessness and tepidity. Help me to begin to serve Thee without reserve by means of mortification and constant prayer. “Let nothing hinder thee from praying always” (Eccli. 18. 22).

II. Ardent Zeal Of St. Dominic

Being purified, sanctified by penance and prayer, Dominic could not but be well fitted to preach the kingdom of God. What marvels did he not work as a docile instrument guided by the Holy Ghost! Miracles accompanied his preaching, and his conversions were so numerous as to reach many thousands both among the unbelievers and Christians. The Albigensian heretics, the special object of his zeal, resisted for a time, to the saint’s great sorrow. But the Queen of heaven hastened to console him.

As he was praying one day, she appeared to him, saying: “The Angelical Salutation, having been the beginning of the Redemption of the world, must also become the source of the conversion of heretics.” Then she recommended her servant to preach on the devotion of the Rosary. Dominic obeyed; instead of arguing on the points controverted, he explained the fifteen mysteries of the Rosary; then setting forth the grandeurs and goodness of the Mother of mercy, he urged every one of his hearers to pray to her with confidence and recite the Rosary in her honor. These sermons had a prodigious success: in a few years more than one hundred thousand heretics were converted, and about 5,000,000 persons embraced the new devotion. Who will not admire Mary’s power and her servant’s docility?

But this is not all: under her protection Dominic founded the illustrious Order of Preachers, which has given the Church so many Pontiffs, saints, martyrs and doctors, so many zealous propagators of the Catholic faith and of the veneration of the Mother of God. This is what one soul can effect, that is submissive to the Holy Ghost, and faithfully and constantly prays to the Dispensatrix of heavenly gifts.

Did not our soul grow cold, whenever we happened to diminish or neglect our practices of devotion towards the Queen of saints? Let us henceforth be more constant and punctual in praying to her, in performing mortifications in her honor, especially on Saturdays and the eves of her feasts.

O Blessed Virgin, thou art, after God, my hope. Through the intercession of thy servant, St. Dominic, obtain for me the grace, first, carefully to shun negligence in the filial veneration I owe thee as my Queen and beloved Mother; secondly, often to invoke thee, especially in suffering, hardships and combats; and thirdly, to be fond of saying the Rosary, meditating on its mysteries and on the sublime virtues of which thou givest me the example therein.