Thirteenth-century Spanish priest who founded the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans.
Life
Saint Dominic was born around 1170 in Caleruega, in Castile, Spain. While a canon priest of the cathedral of Osma, he travelled through southern France and met people caught up in the Albigensian heresy, and he gave himself to preaching the truth by word and by a life of poverty.
He gathered a community of preachers grounded in study, prayer and poverty, which Pope Honorius III approved in 1216 as the Order of Preachers, the Dominicans. A well-known tradition also links him with spreading the Rosary.
He died in Bologna in 1221 and was canonized in 1234. The Church remembers him on August 8.
Spirituality
Dominic's spirituality is to contemplate and to hand on to others what has been contemplated. He studied the truth deeply, tasted it in prayer and then shared it. Love that sought to persuade and save, rather than to win an argument, drove his preaching.
Reflection
To share the faith, we first need to learn it and pray it. This week, would you read a little of the Bible or the Catechism each day and come to know your faith more deeply?