Today is the 1st day of our novena to our Holy Father St Dominic and we know Dominic's answer to his brothers who were weeping and sad at his departing from them. he gave them the marvellous assurance that he would be more help to them from |Heaven than when here on earth. So during the next 9 days we can approach our Father Dominic with great confidence and trust that he will hear and answer our prayer.

Dominic's biographers tell us he imitated our Lord and our Lady in so many ways in his life, especially in his spirit of poverty. I will say a few words about that subject.

The Divine Office ...
“is a gift, not a burden, and many are the graces
that flow from this source:
Grace to praise God;
to comfort our hearts;
to brighten our path;
to renew our strength;
and to edify and sanctify
the faithful”

Dominic on his deathbed bequeathed to his brethren, as their rightful inheritance, his last will and testament saying: “have charity, guard humility and possess voluntary poverty.” This was the path which led him to holiness and he was and is inviting us his sons and daughters to imitate him as he imitated his Saviour, Christ Jesus.

After a long preaching tour in Northern Italy, brother Dominic falls gravely ill in Bologna. It is July 1221, and the town is so stifling, humid and hot that there is no hope of improvement for Dominic’s health. The decision is made to carry Dominic to a small Benedictine hermitage on the hillside outside Bologna.

As he feared being buried in the Benedictine monastery where he had stayed, he begged to be carried anew among his brethren. Once he was back in town and settled in one of the convent’s cells, he was asked whether he wished to be buried next to the relics of this or that saint. Dominic gave this superb answer: “God forbid that I be buried except under the feet of my brethren.”

As Dominicans we treasure what few writings Dominic has left us and those words of his of which there is a record, especially his last words. As Nuns of the Order we hold dear his letter to the nuns in Madrid, but there are two words in particular which should be written on our hearts and woven into the very fabric of our beings and it is on these two words that I would like to reflect this evening.

I was wondering recently if there are Anam Cara’s in Heaven? Maybe! Why Not!
And if some of our prophets from the Old Testament may have already been drawn towards Meister Eckhart & Catherine of Siena and indeed to our modern day mystics----- a meeting of very different cultures ------different languages etc. And yet we know that heart language speaks louder than the spoken word.
Let us have a look at a quote from Meister Eckhart.
“We have within us a nameless transcendent depth which we call the ground of the Soul. The ground is a kind of hollow chamber, an empty space in which the Word can be spoken “

I think Eckhart would understand Catherine when she prays in her own inimitable way.

When we reflect on the life of St. Catherine of Siena, we are struck by the depth of her contemplative prayer united with her unbelievable apostolic zeal amid her own personal spiritual and physical suffering. Having lived a solitary life of contemplation for some years, the Holy Spirit led Catherine to understand that the love of God cannot be separated from serving others. ...

As we continue our novena in honour of St Catherine during this time of pandemic ask her to intercede for all the needs of our Church and our world at this present time. Indeed the state of the Church and world in Catherine’s day was no different – schism in the Church, the Black Death, factions among various states etc. Yet Catherine never lost sight of God’s infinite Mercy as is evident from the following passage from The Dialogue:

It is a happy coincidence that the Feast of the Transfiguration occurs during the Novena to St. Dominic. Because I was thinking about the Mystery of the Transfiguration I was more alert to some elements of Dominic’s life than I might otherwise have been. Two things in particular caught my attention. In St. Dominic’s nine ways of prayer there is the following observation, to quote:
At other times he, Dominic, would remain quietly on his knees, his mind caught up in wonder, and this sometimes lasted a long time. Sometimes it seemed from the way he looked that he had penetrated heaven in his mind, and then he would suddenly appear radiant with joy, wiping away the abundant tears running down his face.