Jubilee 2021: Unite Us with the Blessed
In this Jubilee Year of St. Dominic’s birth into Eternal Life, none of the prayers of the O Lumen could be more fitting than this last one. As we celebrate being ‘At Table with St. Dominic’, nothing could more wonderfully signify the spirit of the Order of Preachers than this burning desire that we – and all souls – be united in eternal relationship with our Heavenly Father, together. It is this that takes us into the reality of the Truth learned through study, the Love learned through patience and chastity, the Total Goodness poured forth in the Wisdom of the Word and the Grace of the Church. As St. Dominic lay dying, he exhorted his brothers to rejoice, for he would be of more use to them in Heaven than he ever had been on earth in his frail humanity. This is not only because of his efficacious intercession, but also because he has now definitively shown us his way, the marvelous road that God laid out for him between earth and the delights of Heaven, a sure path marked out by Christ that all who follow it may come to Him.
When we make vows as Dominicans, we traditionally make only one – a vow of Obedience – but it is a vow to an entire way of life: life as St. Dominic lived it and a sure path to the heights of the spiritual life in Christ. This is St. Dominic’s gift to us, and it is this way of life, faithfully lived, that continues to give birth to the charism which invigorated him on earth and brought so many souls to Jesus. When we live as Dominicans, when we surrender the wonderful gift of ourselves to Christ in the spirit of St. Dominic, everything we thought we were is transformed, purified until we glow with the radiance of who Christ meant us to be – and that person is always a unique expression of the Father’s love. There is a quip common among Dominicans that, “If you’ve met one Dominican, you’ve met… well, one Dominican.”
The Lord put it similarly, though perhaps with a little more gravitas, when he said to St. Catherine of Siena that “[Dominic’s] religion is a delightful garden, broad and joyous and fragrant…”[1] And by it many souls have found their way fruitfully into Eternal Life.
If we look to the virtues and traits we have studied in St. Dominic’s life, we see them mirrored again and again in his order:
Who could we think of as Teacher of Truth more readily than St. Thomas Aquinas?
Who could better embody the Rose of Patience than St. Rose of Lima?
Or who could we imagine pouring forth Wisdom more vividly than St. Catherine of Siena?
Or preaching Grace with such forthright authority as Pope St. Pius the Fifth?
As Christ left not just a teaching, but a Church, so St. Dominic imitated Him even in this, and left not just a spiritual treatise, but an Order. We are his patrimony. In fact, we have very few extant writings of our Holy Father – the best of what is left to us is left through the mouths of his brothers and the only thing on earth he reverenced at his death, was to be buried beneath their feet, beautiful with the Gospel of Peace and walking in the way of the Lord. In our first post, we asked - how do you measure the life of a saint? How do we know the mystery of what St. Dominic lived in Jesus?
The answer, we think, is here: we see it in the faces of our Dominican brothers and sisters,
still seated at table with St. Dominic.
And for those of us who are not called to follow him in this particular way of Dominican life, the table is undoubtedly open and we may share in the universal virtues he shone for the entire Church, the gifts of the same Holy Spirit that gives life to us all, and the treasure of Our Lord’s most Holy Eucharist, which makes us all one body. In all these things, we may look to St. Dominic to see an outworking of the true way to be united with the blessed in Heaven.
St. Dominic desired nothing more than that all souls should be saved, and to see his spiritual children walking well brought him the greatest delight. It must delight him still as he intercedes for our final perseverance - and the perseverance of all souls - before the Father through Christ, Our Lord. As we approach the end of this Jubilee Year, and come to the end of our reflection on the O Lumen, may we all follow after St. Dominic especially in this last of its petitions.
Blessed St. Dominic, unite us with the Blessed!
[1] The Dialogue of St Catherine of Siena, Treatise on Obedience.
