From the ACTS OF THE 1990 PROVINCIAL CHAPTER

Part 1: The Apostolic Life, Prologue, #26 -Our Identity as Preachers.
If we are to have any distinctive identity, either as individuals,as a Province, or as an Order, in today's world and today's Church; ifwe are to be of any distinctive service to our brothers and sisters; ifwe are to be that which each of us, in our hearts wants to be, we mustreclaim the vision of our Founder who referred to himself and his smallgroup of followers as "The Preaching of Jesus Christ and "TheHoly Preaching." We must, in short, see ourselves, collectivelyand individually, as "The Holy Preaching." This vision of ourselvesas "The Holy Preaching" is a vision that needs rebirth amongus today.

The Albigensians

The founder of the Friars Preachers was born of a Castilian family,and his early years were uneventful. When he was about twenty-six he becameone of the canons regular who formed the cathedral chapter at Osma; in1206 the turning-point of his life came, when his bishop, Diego, becameunofficial leader of a papal mission to the heretical Albigenses, who werefirmly established in Languedoc. The bishop chose Dominic as his companion;they lived simply and in poverty, and undertook discussions with theiropponents for which they prepared very carefully. These methods contrastedwith the formality and display of the official missioners, and a houseof nuns founded at Prouille became the center of the new preachers. Thedeath of Bishop Diego at the end of 1207 coincided with the murder of thepapal legate Peter de Castelnau by the Albigenses, and Pope Innocent IIIordered a military campaign against their leader, Count Raymund of Toulouse.There followed five years of bloody civil war, massacre, and savagery,during which Dominic and his few followers persevered in their missionof converting the Albigenses by persuasion addressed to the heart and mind.

The Early Preaching

In 1215 Dominic was able to establish his headquarters in Toulouse,and the idea of an order of preachers began to take shape: a body of highlytrained priests on a monastic basis, bound by vows with emphasis on poverty,but devoted to the active work of preaching and teaching anywhere and everywhere.The enterprise was formally approved at Rome in 1216, and in the followingyear the founder sent eleven of this brothers, over half the then total,to the University of Paris and to Spain. He himself established friariesat Bologna and elsewhere in Italy, and travelled tirelessly to superintendthe nascent order, preaching as he went. St. Dominic always gave importanceto the help of women in his work; one of his last undertakings was to installnuns at San Sisto in Rome; another was to send thirteen of his friars toOxford.

The Saint

Dominic

All the evidence goes to show that St. Dominic was a man of remarkableattractiveness of character and broadness of vision; he had the deepestcompassion for every sort of human suffering; he saw the need to use allthe resources of human learning in the service of Christ; his constantreading was St. Matthew's gospel, St. Paul's letters and the Conferencesof St. John Cassian. The order that he founded was a formative factor inthe religious and intellectual life of later medieval Europe; its diffusionis now world-wide. This saint was the subject of the song 'Domininque'that was so popular in 1963-4; his emblems are a star and a dog with atorch in its mouth. From Donald Attwatter, The Penguin Dictionaryof Saints, Penguin Books, 1963.

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