Novena to St Dominic - Day 2
Published by Dominican Nuns Ireland in Reflections (Dominican) · 31 July 2020
Tags: St, Dominic, Lectio, Divina
Tags: St, Dominic, Lectio, Divina
As we continue our Novena to St Dominic, I would like to share an extract from the book "15 Days with St Dominic" by Alain Quilici O.P.
It was from the gospel that Saint Dominic drew the ardor for his preaching. He had received it from his predecessors, tranmitted it to his brothers and sisters, and practiced it through lectio divina. The tireless preacher of the gospel was also a fervent reader of the gospels. For there was but one Word of God. That same one that must be proclaimed from the roof-tops must also be sung in choir, read and meditated in prayer, contemplated in preaching, and shared in fraternal life.We say that Saint Dominic did not leave a treatise of devotion, nor a manual of spiritual exercises. But by adding up all the elements that constituted his interior armature, we discover that what was left was better than a methodology; he left a practice. In order to follow him, we must imitate him. He could have said, just as Saint Paul did: "Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ" (1Cor 11:1).The Blessed John of Fiesole (know to us as Fra Angelico) has left us, in the cells of the covent of St Mark of Florence, an admirable illustration. In it we see Saint Dominic seated and reading. His face is young, for it reflects the eternal youth of the text upon which he is meditating. We sense that he is concentrating on his text, absorbed by it.In other words, when he read the Scriptures, and especially the gospel, our father, Saint Dominic, truly dedicated himself to his reading! He dedicated himself to it just as he did to someone who spoke to him. Everyone said that he paid particular special attention to people. For him, the gospel was not so much a text as a person.In the same way as he met Christ in each person to whom he had proclaimed the gospel, he met the Lord in person each time he meditated upon his gospel. It was also his custom to "quickly go from reading to prayer and then from prayer to contemplation." Such is his method. It is the simplest of all.
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