St. Dominic
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Today is the Feast of St Dominic
Mary gave St. Dominic the Rosary, but not exactly the way most people think of it. Fr. Garrigou-Lagrange, one of the greatest Dominican theologians explained Dominic’s method: At the end of the 12th century southern France was ravaged by the Albigensian heresy – a heresy which denied the infinite goodness and power of God by admitting a principle of evil which was often victorious…It was at that moment that Our Blessed Lady made known to St. Dominic a kind of preaching till then unknown, which she said would be one of the most powerful weapons against future errors and in future difficulties. Under her inspiration, St Dominic went into the villages of the Albigensians, gathered the people, and preached to them the truths of salvation — the Incarnation, the redemption, eternal life. As Mary had taught him to do, he distinguished the different kinds of mysteries, and after each short instruction, he had ten Hail Mary’s recited… And what the word of the preacher was unable to do, the sweet prayer of the Hail Mary did for hearts. As Mary promised, it proved to be a most fruitful form of preaching., p. 255
So We pray the Rosary in a new way that is actually a really old way – introduced by St. Dominic - a short teaching from the Word of God which is comprised of SS, ST and the Magisterium, and then we pray one decade of the Rosary – and we do this five times.
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The traditional mysteries of the Rosary were meant to serve as an outline for the life and teachings of Jesus. They were never meant to limit us to those scenes. Imagine reading the table of contents of a book over and over and never reading the book. Sooner or later you will lose interest in the table of contents because you want to know more, you desire to go deeper.
During the Rosary we can meditate upon all that Jesus, the Word of God revealed through His life and His teachings. The full Word of God comes to us through Scripture, Tradition and the Magisterium. We can meditate on all of this during the Rosary: Scripture, the writings of Augustine, Aquinas, Teresa of Avila, Therese of Lisieux or St. Faustina; and the teachings of the Magisterium. In fact the best synthesis of the Word of God is the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which is great to meditate upon during the Rosary.
Most importantly the Rosary is meant to be a meditation on the Word of God. Meditation is to read or listen to something from the Word of God, then to reflect on it during the Our Father and Hail Mary’s so that we can grow in our knowledge and love of God and finally to draw a practical resolution we put into practice.
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St Dominic went out to people – he was a missionary of friendship – and he encouraged them to pray the Rosary. We must do the same today
We are getting our butts kicked by the devil and we have rolled over. When Dominic saw this, he got busy and failed. Then the Mother of God came to him with a simple method: Gather people, give them some short teaching to think about, pray the Rosary with them. It worked for Dominic – it will work for us.
But we face a different problem from the time of Dominic. Today the Devil is dividing and conquering, isolating and destroying faith and friendship. Our Lady wants her children to gather together as teams, small groups of family and friends with whom we share life, delight in the goodness of each other, talk about good things and not complaining about what is wrong with the world and not gossiping about other people which just spreads more darkness and division by our conversations. No, Our Lady wants good conversations that bring light. Gather with family and friends, pray this Rosary Podcast and then ask them “What were you reflecting on during the Rosary, what caught your attention and why?”
Listen and pray this audio Rosary with others, or you can print the meditation, read it aloud and pray the decades in between each teaching.
It’s time for you to build your team – as a family, as two friends, or a group of families and friends – in person or from a distance. She is asking for this NOW. We procrastinate but there is no more time to waste.
Do whatever you like. But do something…
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The Power of the Rosary
We underestimate the power of the Rosary. When the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, both bombing sites experienced miracles associated with the rosary. When Hiroshima was bombed on August 6, 1945, an entire house of Jesuits survived, completely unaffected by the bomb. The Jesuit house was located only eight blocks from where the atomic bomb went off and should have been completely annihilated. A church attached to the Jesuit house and everything else around it for miles was obliterated, but the house with the Jesuits in it survived largely intact. Furthermore, none of the Jesuits suffered any ill effects from radiation or loss of hearing whatsoever. In fact, all eight Jesuits lived healthy lives for years after the event. One of the survivors, Fr. Hubert Schiffer, SJ, gave public testimony more than 200 times about what had miraculously happened to him and his confreres. He testified that he firmly believed that they were spared because they prayed the rosary every day in that house in response to the request of Our Lady at Fatima.
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When St. Dominic's mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth, running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great preacher, who would set the world ablaze with the fire of his words.” In fact, the word ‘Dominican’ is a play on the Latin, Domini canes, which means ‘dogs of the Lord.”
Let’s be dogs of the Lord running about setting the world on fire with the Rosary by sharing this podcast with others and inviting them to pray with it with us and forming our teams.
Give your hearts to Mary and she will put Her Son in them and make you her apostles.