It is eight hundred years since St. Dominic died! This is an occasion for the Church to “give thanks for the spiritual fruitfulness of that charism and mission, seen in the rich variety of the Dominican family” (PG 1). As Georges Bernanos wrote in the last century, Dominic’s face is now merged with that of his Order: “If it were in…
St. Francis and St. Dominic were reputed to be friends and so it is beautiful that the first Pope named after St.Francis has sent this in this Letter a gift of warm fraternity to the brothers and sisters of St.Dominic, on the 800th anniversary of his death. The Holy Father begins by saluting Dominic as the “Preacher of Grace”. The…
Brother Ricardo Guardado Flores, O.P., was elected Prior Provincial of the Province of St. Vincent Ferrer in Central America on May 18, 2021, during its fourth Provincial Chapter at the Casa de Espiritualidad San Benito, Heredia in Costa Rica. The election was confirmed by the Master of the Order on the same day and Bro. Ricardo accepted his election on…
On the day of Pentecost, May 23, 2021, the Master of the Order, Bro. Gerard Francisco Timoner III, O.P., appointed Bro. Mark Christopher Padrez, O.P., as Vicar of the Master of the Order. He succeeds Bro. Miguel Angel del Rio, O.P., who had been serving in this capacity since February 2017, and whom we thank for his service. Bro. Mark…
The 8th centenary of St. Dominic’s Easter has multiplied our joy with the message that Pope Francis has addressed to the Master of the Order. I would like to express my gratitude using the words of O Lumen, the antiphon that the Dominican Family sings in celebration of the Saint from Caleruega. Light of the Church: Dominic wanted to live…
Faced with the profound transformations that mark the contemporary world, the Pope once again underlines the need for a renewal of evangelization. In this year of thanksgiving, he encourages us and all the baptized to inscribe ourselves in what was Dominic’s missionary impulse, animated by a hope for the world and for mankind. A hope for the world, whose name…
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…
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…
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…
