strange question, but a very Dominican one. During the
last years of his life Saint Dominic frequently said:
"When the Order is properly established, I am going
off to the Cumans". Barbarous hordes from Eastern
Europe - or Southern or Northern, it does not matter
much - these Cumans were not Christians, and were reputed
to be very cruel (1). This was enough. Dominic wanted
to preach Jesus Christ to them and, if God accepted
his sacrifice, he wanted to die a martyr, after asking
his executioners to cut his body into little pieces
so that he could be more suited to the Passion of his
Lord.
Saint
Dominic spoke all the time about the Cumans and about
his own departure for their lands :
- while his Order was putting down roots and extending
in all directions;
- while he himself traveled around founding houses and
encouraging the brethren;
- while he was organizing his Order, preparing its constitutions
and often going to Rome to seek support from the pope;
- while, like any other friar, he prayed ceaselessly,
considering his work at the head of the Order to be
less than sufficient!
Historians
are full of admiration at the intense activity of these
years, and wonder how he could have achieved so many
things at the same time. And still all this was not
enough for him. "I'm going off to the Cumans".
And he made preparations for going, letting his beard
grow, as a sign of his wish to become a missionary.
For us the
Cumans should be a symbol of the apostolic zeal which
inflamed Saint Dominic. Is there a similar apostolic
zeal in our lives? Deep in my heart have I too the desire
to become a missionary? Who are my "Cumans"?
For Saint Dominic the "Cumans" did not mean
living happily with his brethren, rejoicing everyday
to see the extraordinary spread of the Order, continuing
to preach, conscious of the success he had with attentive
:and well-disposed audiences. Saint Dominic was not
a :man of routine, repeating what was always done and
always known. He was a man who went beyond what was.
usual, and well-known, who did not settle for quiet
situations or well-trod paths.
Go and preach
the Gospel! Go to the Cumans! This was no idle dream
for him. His whole life shows that he was too much of
a realist to be caught in an illusion. Going to the
Cumans was not looking for a way out, a way of escaping
from the incessant problems of the order he was founding,
indeed we know he gave himself completely to this task.
It was not out of weariness but out of humility - on
account of his incapacity, he said - that he asked to
be relieved of his office. Going to the Cumans was for
him a desire, a driving. force, a passion which drove
him forward all the time. He always wanted to go further,
to do more, to give himself more and more, to be more
and more like his Saviour.
Saint Dominic
never went to the Cumans. He never succeeded in realising
his ambition, but he died surrounded by the tears and
affection of his brethren in Bologna. However, it was
this desire that kept him alive. Would his last years
have been so productive if he had not been obsessed
by his desire? Should not those too who want to live
a rich and full life in the steps of brother Dominic,
be tormented by a wild and never realised ambition,
which urges them forward and releases their powers?
There can be no true life unless one strives to accomplish
something.
Who are my
"Cumans" ?
The "Cumans"
- that Dominican ambition springing inevitably from
a forward-looking and creative apostolate - can have
a thousand and one forms. It is much more than one particular
place, or mission, more than any . particular people,
coloured or from deprived districts, rich or poor, Christian
or non-believing. It is above all a frame of mind, a
power, a driving force in what is deepest in us, which
always leaves us dissatisfied with what we are and what
we do. It is an ambition which on account of its own
vitality, and the suffering it causes us is able to
change our communities, the world and above all ourselves.
We always
run the risk of limiting our material horizon and our
field of action, and it is above all through the heart
that we break through these barriers. "We too,
I too, will go to the Cumans, with our eyes on Christ".
In other words we always want to do more, to do what
is harder, more difficult, more dangerous, that which
is, humanly speaking, the most hopeless enterprise,
more unimaginable for each one of us.
Is it possible
to love without paying a price? Today this price to
be paid, this fatigue means much more than forgetting
yourself or giving yourself to others. It must include
a continual seeking to find out what should be done,
seeking the necessary changes in our methods and our
apostolate, in the way we express our relationship with
God and with others, whether they be close to us or
far away.
"To
go to the Cumans" for us means to look on the world
as it is, to find out what it is in the process of becoming
and what it will be tomorrow. It is to be present now
in the blossoming bud of the evolving world. "Where
are the people today who tomorrow will be the driving
force and the dynamism of the new world? Is the Order
present to them? What should it do for them? What is
it acutally doing for them?"
"To
go to the Cumans" means not being satisfied with
"saving the saved", but reaching out also,
indeed especially, to those who are not "saved",
but who will make or unmake tomorrow's world. Above
all it does not mean criticising what is happening in
our times, and then carrying out as well as possible
the narrow way of life which we have laid down for ourselves,
once and for all. What it does mean above all is to
carry on the work of Saint Dominic, or in other words
to allow him to be,,, still present in the world as
it exists.
But how can
we live up to this ideal if in our heart of hearts our
"Cumans" are not alive, if they died within
us before coming to birth? I know brothers and sisters
of ours who all through their lives did their best to
be sent on the missions, as we used to say in those
days. For them the Cumans had a very definite shape.
But some of these religious never succeeded in going
on the missions. However, their longing to go kept them
alive. It made it possible for them to carry out as
well as they could the work that was given to them.
They did this out of a sense of loyalty certainly, but
also perhaps in the secret of their hearts, because
they hoped to persuade their superiors and even God
himself to let them achieve their ambition. If this
ambition had not urged them at times to take refuge
in the Lord in prayer and silence, would they ever have
learned to do just this? Indeed they suffered too much
in carrying out a monotonous apostolate, amongst an
unfeeling community, in the face of illness, and especially
in the face of a drab and unhappy existence.
"I am
going off to the Cumans".
If that cry
of brother Dominic was alive in us, if it tormented
us all the time, would not our communities, and our
life with God for other people be totally different
from what they are? 
1.
During their two journeys to the Marches (Northern Germany)
Bishop Diego of Osma and his companion Dominic had the
opportunity of passing through areas devastated by the
Cumans. The desire to win these pagans for Christ sprung
from this experience as also did an appreciation of
the danger these people posed for Europe and the Church:
cf V.J. Koudelka, "Notes pour servir à l'histoire
de Saint Dominique. II", Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum
43, 1973, PP 5-11.
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