ow our Lady obtained from her Son the Order of Preachers": this is the title of the first chapter of Gerard de Frachet's Lives of the Brethren (1, 1) . The Virgin of Mercy, in her role of "watchful intercessor", feared, the text adds, that sinners would perish after being rejected by God; she therefore raised up this Order of preaching "for the salvation of the human race". Was this not Dominic's same prayer, lovingly and beautifully transformed in the Dominican Fioretti? Mary presented her Son with Dominic and Francis, who thus became "brothers in arms" (I, 4).

"The Virgin could not abandon an Order she had called into existence: she helped it, protected it and presided over even the smallest details. When she cured Reginald of Orléans she showed him `the entire habit of the Order" (The Beginnings, 57). Dominican tradition has always held that the Mother of God herself deigned to design the habit composed of light and shadow, having the brethren give up the canon's surplice, which they had worn until then, and replacing it with the scapular.

We should not be surprised therefore to learn that the Virgin haunted the dreams and visions of the early brethren with smiling discretion. She blessed them, making the sign of the Cross over them (Lives of the Brethren, VI, 7) and shared in all their daily life, serving in the refectory, dictating a homily to a preacher who was running out of ideas (Lives, VI, 1q), visiting the dying (Lives, VI, 20, 21). The author of the Lives of the Brethren summarizes Mary's loving presence with these words:

It could clearly be seen how the Blessed Virgin Mary cared for the brethren of the Order when they were preaching or travelling, when they were in distress, when they ate, when they were afflicted and persecuted, and when they prayed (Lives, Vl, 22). Even when they addressed her directly, she prayed with them, especially during the solemn Salve Regina which brought the day to a close after Compline and had first been sung at Bologna in a time of trial. (1) As a result, the custom grew of singing this antiphon when the brethren entered into their last agony.

As for Dominic himself, whenever he met with any difficulty along the road he loved to intone the Ave Maris Stella (Bologna, 21). He also chose to retain the custom of reciting the liturgical office - or, para liturgical in modern terms - of the Blessed Virgin, as was done at Citeaux and Premontré. He arranged this in a special way, however. So as not to make the liturgy burdensome, but to prepare for it and place it under the protection of the Mother of God, he had the brethren say the Hours of the Virgin Mary before the canonical Office. Thus they recited Matins of the Blessed Virgin in the dormitory on rising (Primitive Constitutions, Dist. I, 1) and the other hours before those of the office.

In this way Mary was ever present in the life of the brethren. Singing her litany at the end of Compline on Saturdays was a devotion the brethren transmitted to the lay confraternities of the Rosary in the sixteenth century. During the first half of the XXth century Dominicans added to it the invocation, "Queen of Preachers, pray for us."

1- Jordan of Saxony, The Beginnings, 120. Frachet, Lives of the Brethren, VII,I. On the Salve Regina see Bonniwell, op. cit., pp. 164 65, 188.

(Source : Bedouelle, Guy. Saint Dominic. The Grace of the Word. Ignatius, 1987.)

Image of the Virgin Mary that Dominic transfered from Saint Mary-in-Tempulo to the monastery of San Sisto in Rome, where he had assembled the first group of nuns in Italy.