Memorial of Saint Dominic Guzman, priest
(Numbers 12:1-13; Matthew 14: 22-36)
In May American Catholics were amazed to hear of a nun’s
dead body discovered uncorrupted four years after its burial. Immediately they asked if the nun, Sr.
Wilhelmina Lancaster, was not a saint.
She founded her religious community and was known for her devotion to
Mary, the Mother of our Lord.
Hearing of Sr. Wilhelmina, many Dominicans friars and
sisters thought of their founder St. Dominic Guzman. When his body was exhumed
after being buried twelve years, a sweet fragrance ascended from the
casket. The aroma sealed the case of
Dominic’s sanctity. Dominicans in the
first third of the thirteenth century worried that their founder was not being given
due recognition. His contemporary, St.
Francis of Assisi, was canonized within two years of his death. Not as charismatic as “il poverello,”
Dominic was nevertheless a very holy man who displayed a critical quality for
the renewal of the human heart.
St. Dominic was a man of community. He did not call attention to himself but
worked steadfastly for the good of the whole. He founded the Order of Preachers to assist
the Church in its re-evangelization of southern France where heresy had taken
hold. He also had the foresight to
organize a community of nuns to pray for the preaching friars. Beyond his example of prayer and fraternity,
he left the Order with a functional Constitution. Its flexibility and prudence have allowed the
Order to remain undivided for over eight hundred years.
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