St. Dominic Celebration
10 August 2010
MarylandBurial at Arlington must be "zero-defect", said Army inspector Whitcom. "Even one error is too much" (Washington Post, 10 August 2010, p. A16).
In choosing his Apostles, Jesus could not claim zero-defect. Nor could Dominic, in founding his Order. From the start, he met defects and opposition. "You six, go to Paris." —"Then we need money." "Don't you trust in God?" —"Give us money!" So he relented, and gave them. Years later, out of office, he saw a fancy priory under construction. "Simplify that design," he appealed. —"Baba, sit and rest. We know better than you how to build."
The Order, like the Church, is loaded with defects. It is also loaded with charisms, human and divine, enough to carry it to the end of time, in spite of the defects.
Our own defects we all know about. Let us look at the charisms, the secrets of success, that Dominic bequeathed to us.
For an organization to survive, to prosper, what does it take? A community, sociologists say, requireds a creed, a code, and a cult. Undermine creed, as liberal Protestants did, and their church withers. Undermine code —they fight and split apart. Undermine cult (liturgy and religious observances), as some Catholic communities did, and they get no vocations.
Islam is strong, but not impregnable, on all these fronts. So its clout is growing.
Dominicans, when it comes to creed, are one with the Church. That was not enough for Dominic. They had to study, plunge the depths of divine wisdom, and beam it on their contemporaries, on the problems they struggle with. An intellectual tradition soon developed, spearheaded by Thomas Aquinas.
For code, Dominic bequeathed profession, obedience according to a constitution. The Order of Preachers has never split.
For cult, Dominic bequeathed common celebration of Mass, and the liturgy of the hours. On this he put his own stamp: It was to be solemn, with bodily movement and song. Even on the road, he would sing the Ave maris stella. On the other hand, the liturgy was to be brisk, both to prevent boredom and to allow time for study. Exemption from choir, for study or preaching, was his innovation.
Dominic thus skirted two extremes: the first is to recite the liturgy, seated throughout; the second is to drag the singing and the action, creating a go-slow. Many Dominican houses today tend to either of these extremes, but, thank God, not Maryland.
The Order of Preachers, a sociologist would conclude, has all the requisites for survival and growth. It has something more. Divine power undergirds its human charisms. "I will be of more use to you when I am gone, than when I was present," promised Dominic. And from the start, Dominicans drafted Mary as their patron.
The Order has stumbled, but has not tumbled. Dominicans have stumbled, but few have tumbled. We support one another, and our heavenly members support us. Catherine of Siena said, "The blood of Christ runs through our veins, and unites us with our heavenly Father." That makes the Order irrepressible.
The Popes approved the Order for the task of preaching. What is our impact? I confess, after 53 years of profession, that I have not personally moved a single person, whether to become a Catholic, or to repent of a life of sin, or to become a priest or religious. True, I have baptized many, absolved many, and assisted many vocation applicants. But I did not mentor their decision.
I take consolation in the fact that I, like many of us, never met a Dominican before deciding to become one. Their word had gone out from one end of the sky to the other. I read about them, I heard about them. They attracted me without ever knowing me.
Dominic prayed prostrate in the night. His preaching, he knew, was mere straw. But God could light it to ignite the hearts of men, to draw them to himself. Thomas, too, regarded his writings as mere straw. But it too could be lit, to dispel darkness from men's minds.
Our Order can never achieve zero-defect. But it has the strengths, not merely to weather the storms, but to light up the whole world.