Jubilee 2021

In his letter marking the 800th anniversary of the ‘birth of St. Dominic into eternal life,’ Pope Francis gave our Order a fantastic summary of the Dominican vocation and charism. Grace and unity are two words that I ponder as I receive this letter as a gift which renews my own enthusiasm for the Dominican life. As an apostolic Sister,…

“The witness of evangelical fraternity (…) remains a fundamental element of the Dominican charism. “This is what we can read in Pope Francis’ beautiful letter to the Order! As Dominican nuns, we live, like all the other branches of the Order, according to the Rule of St. Augustine: “The first thing for which you are gathered together is to dwell…

Two phrases from Pope Francis’s Praedicator Gratiae strike me in particular. First, when he says that as a student in Palencia Dominic “came to appreciate the inseparability of faith and charity, truth and love, integrity and compassion.” Secondly, when in speaking of the importance of life in common in the Dominican tradition and how it inspires a “synodal” form of…

The important, profound letter from Pope Francis addressed to the whole Order in this Jubilee year warmly stirs our communities of contemplative life, reminding us of the commitment and involvement that we nuns have had since the beginning of the “Holy Preaching”. Our Region of South America and the Caribbean, thanks to the merciful love of God, has beacons that…

First of all I would like to thank the Holy Father for this letter to the whole Dominican family. In it he encourages us and urges us to live our Dominican charism more intensely – in my case as a contemplative nun. Our father St. Dominic was, above all, a man of prayer and contemplation. At that time he saw…

I must express my amazement at the precision and insight the pope speaks about our way of life as Dominicans. Surely, he gives an impression of saying things that are both obvious and archaic to every Dominican. He tries to get at the things that must be already behind us as history; yet he brings them out in a way…

Pope Francis, our shepherd, writes to us Dominicans “imploring [for us] the grace of perseverance in fidelity to [our] founding charism”, so that we may participate in the work of the universal Church. Nor could it be otherwise, since the Order of Preachers, as a group of proclaimers of Grace and the Gospel, shares in the mission of the Church…

How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of the one bringing good news (Isaiah 52:7). Saint Dominic must have had beautiful feet because he allowed those feet to make him an apostle to the peripheries proclaiming Veritas, refuting error and bringing His blessings to all. Those feet were surely holy feet–pure like the virginal lily; fiery and restless like…

On 6th January this year, the Jubilee of the Eighth Centenary of the death – dies natalis – of St. Dominic of Caleruega (c. 1274-1221), which happened on 6th August 1221 in a humid, sweltering Bologna, was inaugurated throughout the Order of Preachers. With the Apostolic Letter Praedicator gratiae, addressed to the whole Dominican Family all over the world, Pope…

The Dominican historian Brother Simon Tugwell, in the first of his series of articles on Dominic of Caleruega, published in 1995 in the journal Archivum Fratrum Praedicatorum, entitled one chapter “Dominic and his Popes”. There he discussed the personal relationship Dominic had with the first two Popes of the thirteenth century, Innocent III (1198-1216) and Honorius III (1216-1227): it was…