Humbert of Romans recounts for us some of the last words of our holy Father: “Here, dearest brethren, is what I bequeath to you as sons, as to your rightful inheritance. Have charity, keep hold of humility, possess voluntary poverty.” I have often reflected on these parting words of our holy Father, but what caught my attention during this past week was the fact that this is Dominic’s bequest to his sons and daughters as our rightful inheritance. In other words, Dominic makes us heirs of what was for him the foundation of his spirituality and the source of his apostolic fruitfulness – charity, humility and voluntary poverty.

St. Dominic – A Man of Prayer

Imagine a man who walked the dusty roads of Spain and France, not with wealth or armies, but with a heart burning with love for God and a voice that carried the Gospel into the hearts of the poor and the learned alike. This man, St. Dominic de Guzman, was not merely a preacher of words — he was a preacher of prayer. His life teaches us that true evangelisation begins not in the marketplace, but in the quiet sanctuary of the soul.

A Reflection on the ‘O Lumen,’ the prayer we sing to Dominic daily after Compline (Night Prayer).

O light of the Church,
Doctor of truth,
Rose of patience,
Ivory of chastity,
Water of wisdom freely given
Preacher of grace lead us to the blessed.

Dominic is a flaming torch setting the world ablaze with God the Father’s love, mercy and compassion.

Extract from the book: Saint Dominic’s Way of Life, by Patrick Mary Briscoe, OP and Jacob Bertrand Janczyk, OP.

One of the oldest prayers to the Virgin Mary is the ancient antiphon titled in Latin Sub Tuum Praesidium. By some accounts this prayer dates to the third century.

When I was reflecting on St Dominic’s life in the light of today’s Gospel the thoughts that came to me weren’t about the ‘miracles of multiplication’ that occurred for the feeding of his Brothers (and on occasion Sisters), but rather that in the living of his life and the establishment of his Order he let Christ take, bless, break and distribute both himself and his Order as Christ wished and indicated. As Dominic said, “seed that is hoarded does not bear fruit.”

The presence of Saint Dominic in our chapel—in the painting by Fra Angelico—encourages me throughout the day to listen deeply once again to the Word of God.

With his left hand,Dominic gently touches the pages of Scripture. In reality, we cannot touch an object without being touched by it ourselves. A person touches God because God touches us first.

As we continue our novena in honour of St. Dominic, I hope that our most Holy Father would excuse me for shifting the attention slightly away from him and focusing briefly on his elder brother Bl. Mannes de Guzman.

This somewhat hidden yet important figure of the early beginnings of the Dominican Order, humbly lay aside his ‘elder sibling privileges’ and generously followed his much younger brother, Dominic, on an uncharted journey starting from the tireless preaching against the Albigenses in Southern France to the establishment of the Order of Preachers.

St Dominic - Light of the Church

During the past week at Mass, we have been hearing parables of Jesus about the kingdom of heaven, as recounted by St Matthew. It is a treasure more valuable than all earthly possessions; a priceless pearl; a tiny mustard-seed that grows to become a great shrub where birds of the air can build a home.

It seems very fitting that we celebrate St Catherine’s feast during the Paschal season, when we remember with joy and thanksgiving all that our Saviour has done for us through his Passion, Death, Resurrection and sending the Holy Spirit and the gift we receive in Baptism when we are grafted onto the True Vine and become his branches with the same life sap coursing through Head and members

As we continue our Novena to St Catherine, I will read a short extract from a letter she wrote to Pope Gregory, calling on him to end the conflict with Florence:

In the name of Jesus Christ Crucified and of Sweet Mary Most Holy, holy and reverent father in Christ sweet Jesus, your unworthy daughter Catherine, servant and slave of the servants of Jesus Christ, writes your Holiness in His precious blood with desire to see you achieve peace, having peace yourself and your children around you.

But when people have the light, they become true servants of their Creator. Though they are living in the night of this darksome life they walk with the light, and though they are on the stormy sea they receive and experience interior peace. They are always running on toward perfection, constant and persevering right up to the moment of their death.

From a very young age, Catherine felt a strong attraction to prayer and service to others. At the age of sixteen, she entered the Dominican Third Order and dedicated her life to prayer, penance and caring for the sick and needy. .... Like St. Dominic what most characterized St. Catherine’s life and spirituality was her love of Christ and her passion for the Cross. For her, the Cross was the way to union with God and the source of salvation.

In The life of St. Catherine of Siena, the saint’s biographer and confessor, Blessed Raymond of Capua, recounts a time in which while sharing a lengthy conversation with the saint on God and various spiritual matters, he found himself, “being weighed down by the weight of flesh”, and eventually succumbing to sleep.

From a letter of St Catherine, in which she treats of the illusion of dominion / lordship and earthly power.

“For humanity is nothing of itself; what we have, we have from God by grace, not because he owes it to us. This is why no man who knows himself will ever mortally offend God or become proud because of his position or greatness or power. If he were lord of the whole world, he would consider himself nothing. ...

Often when we think of the canonised Saints we look to the finished work of art and we might be inclined not to pay enough attention to the process, their gradual transformation by grace throughout their whole lives that eventually culminated in their total self giving to God and to others. So in preparation for her Feast this year I focused on various salient moments, milestones in Catherine’s journey, as related by her biographer Raymond of Capua that remind us that Catherine struggled at times to do God’s will and when it came to the end died of a broken heart, ...

Happy Feast of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary!
Here follows a reflection on the second joyful mystery - the Mystery of the Visitation of Our Lady to St Elizabeth.

Towards the end of his life, when the disciples of St Anthony, the father of monasticism, asked for a word of advice he replied with three words – always breathe Christ. Breathing and respiration is a double movement – in and out. St Dominic was certainly always breathing Christ. His life, in its nights and its days, was an incessant rhythm of praying and preaching. And even Dominic’s prayer had this rhythmic quality.

Mother of Mercy

One of the oldest prayers to the Virgin Mary is the ancient antiphon titled in Latin Sub Tuum Praesidium. By soom accounts this prayer dates to the third century. The beautiful words, first written in Greek, present the Blessed Mother as one who intercedes for us.

The theme of my reflection is: Reverence

I was very struck by the talks given by Fr. Paul Murray, O.P., to the Dominican Novices in Caleruega, Spain this year ( 2025), and I would like to quote a portion of one of his talks, in which he highlights St. Dominic’s reverence in praying, shown in the Nine Ways of Prayer, in teaching the brethren to be reverent to one another and in the reverence and veneration he shows to the Scriptures themselves.

THE MIRACLES OF ST. DOMINIC
Narrated by SISTER CECILIA

Of the Bread and Wine Miraculously Multiplied and Distributed to the Brethren Through His Prayers

On this fifth day of our novena to St Dominic, we began our Mass with the prayer:
Draw near to your servants, O Lord,
and answer their prayers with unceasing kindness,
that, for those who glory in you as their Creator and guide,
you may restore what you have created
and keep safe what you have restored.

What is impressive about St Dominic? His simplicity, I think.

From ‘Libellus’ written by Bl. Jordan of Saxony we know that St. Dominic
‘In every reasonable purpose which his mind conceived, in accordance with God’s will,he maintained such constancy that he hardly ever consented to change any plan which he had formulated with due deliberation’

St Dominic's Fourth Way of Prayer

After this, St Dominic, standing before the altar or in the chapter Room, would fix his gaze on the crucifix, looking intently at Christ on the Cross and kneeling down over and over again. Sometimes he would spend the whole time from the end of Compline until midnight

The more I immerse myself into the Dominican way of life and grow in knowledge (be it still at an elementary level) of the Order of Preachers, I can’t help but see striking similarities between our Lord Jesus Christ and our holy founder, St. Dominic. Indeed, as William A. Hinnebusch O.P states in his book, Dominican Spirituality (1965); “Everything positive in the Order’s spiritual life traces back to Dominic, just as everything positive in the church traces back to Christ.”