by Fr. Ferdinand-Donatien Joret, O.P.
I. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT OF A RELIGIOUS ORDER?
There are some religious congregations that have little to distinguish them beyond the name of the place that gave them birth, or some particular devotion which they practise more specially and from which they derive their name. The Order of St. Dominic, on the other hand, is one of those which, upon their appearance, constituted a new species in the Church. It is an Order which is definitely distinguished from others. Whilst the elements that enter into its composition are not all of them original, their organization at least is the outcome of an original conception.
This organization finds its full scope in the First Order, that of the Friars Preachers. Its aim, though complex, is clearly defined, and the means are perfectly regulated with a view to that end.
Like every other religious Order, it strives to realize in each one of its members the perfection of charity. Only, in its case, charity takes the form of contemplation. The love of God prompts the Dominican soul to fix upon Him the eyes of the intelligence. The Friar Preacher does not apply himself to contemplation with the sole object of procuring food for his preaching. Contemplation is for him a true end, to be sought for its own sake, the highest of all ends, the beginning here below of life eternal. But although contemplation is not just a means to the apostolate, although the life of union with God marks the summit of Dominican life, nevertheless, it is the source of the apostolate. Our contemplation must overflow and find its outlet in apostolic action.
I. WHAT IS THE SPIRIT OF A RELIGIOUS ORDER?
There are some religious congregations that have little to distinguish them beyond the name of the place that gave them birth, or some particular devotion which they practise more specially and from which they derive their name. The Order of St. Dominic, on the other hand, is one of those which, upon their appearance, constituted a new species in the Church. It is an Order which is definitely distinguished from others. Whilst the elements that enter into its composition are not all of them original, their organization at least is the outcome of an original conception.
This organization finds its full scope in the First Order, that of the Friars Preachers. Its aim, though complex, is clearly defined, and the means are perfectly regulated with a view to that end.
Like every other religious Order, it strives to realize in each one of its members the perfection of charity. Only, in its case, charity takes the form of contemplation. The love of God prompts the Dominican soul to fix upon Him the eyes of the intelligence. The Friar Preacher does not apply himself to contemplation with the sole object of procuring food for his preaching. Contemplation is for him a true end, to be sought for its own sake, the highest of all ends, the beginning here below of life eternal. But although contemplation is not just a means to the apostolate, although the life of union with God marks the summit of Dominican life, nevertheless, it is the source of the apostolate. Our contemplation must overflow and find its outlet in apostolic action.
We shall, accordingly, impart to others the fruits of our contemplation. This communication will take many forms, of which the most important are the teaching of sacred science, the preaching of Christian doctrine and spiritual direction.
We see, then, that whilst for us contemplation and the apostolate are two ends, they are not parallel and casually connected, still less are they subordinated the one to the other, as though the contemplation were made for the apostolate, but they are ends, the second of which arises from the superabundance of the first so surely that Dominican contemplation naturally overflows into the apostolate. Everything must be subservient to that twofold end. Poverty, chastity, obedience, the great fundamental means, not to speak of the various observances of monastic and canonical life, all take a colouring of their own in view of the goal for which they must be adapted, relaxed or extended as the case may require.
Great as is their use, vows and observances are more or less negative means. They separate us from the world and deliver us from its snares and anxieties. But the Friar Preacher, thus set free and protected, has to apply himself to the great positive means through which he must strive to reach his goal. Those means are choral prayer and, above all, religious study. By them we attain immediately to the contemplation and the apostolate to which we are vowed.
Such is, briefly stated, Dominican life in its perfection.
We see, then, that whilst for us contemplation and the apostolate are two ends, they are not parallel and casually connected, still less are they subordinated the one to the other, as though the contemplation were made for the apostolate, but they are ends, the second of which arises from the superabundance of the first so surely that Dominican contemplation naturally overflows into the apostolate. Everything must be subservient to that twofold end. Poverty, chastity, obedience, the great fundamental means, not to speak of the various observances of monastic and canonical life, all take a colouring of their own in view of the goal for which they must be adapted, relaxed or extended as the case may require.
Great as is their use, vows and observances are more or less negative means. They separate us from the world and deliver us from its snares and anxieties. But the Friar Preacher, thus set free and protected, has to apply himself to the great positive means through which he must strive to reach his goal. Those means are choral prayer and, above all, religious study. By them we attain immediately to the contemplation and the apostolate to which we are vowed.
Such is, briefly stated, Dominican life in its perfection.
Just as there is in every man a spirit which is the substantial form of the human composite and which determines its organization, so also there is a Dominican spirit which has formed this composite whole, which maintains good relations between its various elements and animates all our life. Let us try to define it. By so doing we shall render good service to our Tertiaries, who must permeate their entire conduct with that spirit if they wish to be faithful to the Order to which they belong. They will not readily find in their Rule the majority of the elements we have mentioned as ends and means in the life of the Friars Preachers. Indeed, the various prescripts of this Rule, literally taken, do not differ materially from those of other Third Orders, or from those of certain pious associations. This is not to be wondered at. It is by the spirit which animates their observances that they must be distinguishable from the other groups, and must fit themselves into St. Dominic's great Order.
The Church understands this and recognizes a real incompatibility between different Third Orders, as well as between the religious profession in one Order and the Tertiary state in another. A Franciscan religious may not be Dominican Tertiary, nor can one person belong, at the same time, to the Third Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis without a very special dispensation.
The spirit of these divers groups is not identical, albeit the spirit of all is Christian. In Our Lord the Christian spirit was manifested in its fulness. The different religious Orders emphasize different features of their divine model. Each one sounds its own note. From the combination of these notes the Church obtains a noble harmony which attempts to reproduce the perfect beauty of Jesus Christ a beauty that could be represented entirely by none of them singly.
Let nobody be so fatuous, so narrow minded as to despise the part assigned to others. (Does the eye despise the ear ? Does the mouth jeer at the wounded foot which has been cut by the stones on the highway?) At the same time, let everyone remain faithful to his own role, and to enable him to play it aright let him be permeated with its spirit.
The Dominican spirit is made up of principles, maxims, motives, tendencies, sentiments and tastes, in accordance with which we must rule ourselves in the Order of St. Dominic, under all circumstances and in all branches of the Order.
Manifold and varied are the occupations of the different congregations of our Third Order regular. And widely dissimilar are the family conditions and the civil avocations of our secular Tertiaries. But "because every spirit possesses the prerogatives of spiritual nature, which are simplicity and liberty (that is to say, the possibility of realizing itself in degrees infinitely varied), whoever shares in a spirit can aspire to the plenitude and total perfection of that spirit, no matter to what kind of life he may be called. On the other hand, it is quite possible, alas, to accomplish all the external activities required by our Order without living by its spirit, or again we may be tempted to think that this spirit is confined to certain forms to the exclusion of others which are, however, no less Dominican." (1)
It is for the novice whom the Order of St. Dominic has taken to its bosom to assimilate the spirit of the family which has adopted him.
The Church understands this and recognizes a real incompatibility between different Third Orders, as well as between the religious profession in one Order and the Tertiary state in another. A Franciscan religious may not be Dominican Tertiary, nor can one person belong, at the same time, to the Third Orders of St. Dominic and St. Francis without a very special dispensation.
The spirit of these divers groups is not identical, albeit the spirit of all is Christian. In Our Lord the Christian spirit was manifested in its fulness. The different religious Orders emphasize different features of their divine model. Each one sounds its own note. From the combination of these notes the Church obtains a noble harmony which attempts to reproduce the perfect beauty of Jesus Christ a beauty that could be represented entirely by none of them singly.
Let nobody be so fatuous, so narrow minded as to despise the part assigned to others. (Does the eye despise the ear ? Does the mouth jeer at the wounded foot which has been cut by the stones on the highway?) At the same time, let everyone remain faithful to his own role, and to enable him to play it aright let him be permeated with its spirit.
The Dominican spirit is made up of principles, maxims, motives, tendencies, sentiments and tastes, in accordance with which we must rule ourselves in the Order of St. Dominic, under all circumstances and in all branches of the Order.
Manifold and varied are the occupations of the different congregations of our Third Order regular. And widely dissimilar are the family conditions and the civil avocations of our secular Tertiaries. But "because every spirit possesses the prerogatives of spiritual nature, which are simplicity and liberty (that is to say, the possibility of realizing itself in degrees infinitely varied), whoever shares in a spirit can aspire to the plenitude and total perfection of that spirit, no matter to what kind of life he may be called. On the other hand, it is quite possible, alas, to accomplish all the external activities required by our Order without living by its spirit, or again we may be tempted to think that this spirit is confined to certain forms to the exclusion of others which are, however, no less Dominican." (1)
It is for the novice whom the Order of St. Dominic has taken to its bosom to assimilate the spirit of the family which has adopted him.
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God Himself can best reveal to us the spirit that should inspire our conduct. Therefore nothing is so potent to obtain it for our souls as humble, trustful and persevering prayer. The Three Persons Who said: "Let Us make man to Our image," also took counsel together to produce this particular spirit which was to become incarnate in each one of the members of our Order equally and impartially. Only in the mind of God does the Dominican ideal exist in its absolute purity. The Father expresses it in the Son and They both love it in the Spirit of Love. The joy of apprehending it and of delighting in it will be vouchsafed to us when we attain to the Heavenly Vision.
Here below we see it manifested in those who have most fully realized in themselves the ideal God has conceived. And first of all in St. Dominic, our Father.
On March 18th, 1924, the Sovereign Pontiff, Pius XI, wrote to the Superiors of Regular Orders as follows: "Above all we exhort religious to take as their model their own founder, their fatherly lawgiver, if they wish to have a sure and certain share in the graces which flow from their vocation. Actually when those eminent men created their institutions, what did they do but obey divine inspirations? Therefore the character which each one strove to impress upon his society must be retained by all its members if it is to remain faithful to its original ideal. As good sons let them devote themselves heart and soul to honour their father and lawgiver, to observe his precepts and to imbibe his spirit."
So we too must be steeped in St. Dominic's spirit - as it came to be gradually understood by our Blessed Father himself and as he finally evolved it. Not until the closing years of his life did St. Dominic, formulating his idea at last, arrive at a clear-cut conception of his Order. Until then it had been but an intuition which God had placed in him: persistent and powerful though it was, it remained mysteriously hidden in the depths of the soul of Jane of Aza's son, of the student of Palencia, of the Canon of Osma, and of the King of Spain's ambassador. The conclusion, to which he was led by perfect self-surrender to divine influence, coincided with the idea God had had for him from the beginning.
Like the Father Who expresses Himself in His Eternal Word, Dominic had a son who formulated his thoughts with a precision and a forcefulness which can never be surpassed. I have called St. Thomas Aquinas the word of our Father. We have none of St. Dominic's writings. The witnesses to his life at the process for his canonization mention the notes with which he covered his books, the theses he wrote against heretics, precious letters addressed to his friars to direct them in his precepts. . . . Alas ! they have all of them been lost. However, we have the works of St. Thomas to console us.
The ardent zeal which inspired the Count of Aquino's son, already received into a Benedictine Abbey, to persist in his efforts to enter the Dominican Order which realized his ideal, enabled him afterwards triumphantly to vindicate that ideal when it was attacked by William of St. Amour and other masters of the University, and to live up to it until his death. No one was ever better qualified to express what our spirit ought to be. Take his Summa Theologica and study the moral part, which is later and still more able and finished than the dogmatic part. Everything in it helps to define the character of the Order which St. Dominic conceived, and which is placed by St. Thomas at the head of the hierarchy of religious Orders. (2)
By his theological teaching he has sealed the Dominican spirit with his own permanent seal. The spirituality of the Preachers has been profoundly influenced by "dear St. Thomas, the Master, the shining light," as Bl. Henry Suso called him. From henceforth the Dominican spirit and the Thomist spirit are one and the same for the humblest Tertiary as for the Master in Theology. Read the life of that fourteenth-century Sienese mantellata, "one of the most amazingly simple souls who ever drew nigh to God." "Ignorant though she is, St. Catherine of Siena is steeped in the same spirit" (as St. Thomas). "In artless speech which recalls the Romaunt of the Rose, she utters pious thoughts which are redolent of the sweet fragrance of the purest Thomism." (3)
After St. Dominic and St. Thomas, she is the greatest figure in our Order. Born into the world at a time when St. Dominic's family, like the rest of Christendom, was experiencing a phase of great religious relaxation, she exercised a powerful influence over a group of Preachers who became the promoters of a reform movement amongst their brethren. After her death in 1380 at the age of thirty-three, her confessor and spiritual son, Raymund of Capua, having been elected Master General, laboured to restore the ancient discipline. Following Raymund of Capua and his collaborators we always call St. Catherine of Siena our mother.
Since we have compared our founder and our great doctor to the Eternal Father and the Word, we may well say that in the Dominican trinity she takes the part of the Holy Spirit. It would have been possible so to abuse Thomist intellectualism as to have been satisfied with a beautiful system, logically constructed, of mere philosophical and theological abstractions. The humble, noble-hearted woman whom the Holy Spirit overwhelms with His mystical favours helps us to preserve in the spirit of our Order the fervour of love which cleaves to reality, even to the reality of God. It is precisely this divine reality that must be born in us ; we must consecrate ourselves to it and we must bear witness to it before the world. St. Catherine. gives us no encouragement to relegate to a secondary plane that pursuit of truth which St. Thomas, following St. Dominic, placed first. Like them, she is eminently intellectual and rational.
Many other saints, many other blessed and venerable persons, have defined and have lived the Dominican ideal between the thirteenth century and our own. We shall speak of many in the following pages. But it is more particularly to these three great souls that we must turn to discover the characteristics that should mark our life, the principles and sentiments that must guide our conduct, in short, all that constitutes what we call our spirit.
Since we have compared our founder and our great doctor to the Eternal Father and the Word, we may well say that in the Dominican trinity she takes the part of the Holy Spirit. It would have been possible so to abuse Thomist intellectualism as to have been satisfied with a beautiful system, logically constructed, of mere philosophical and theological abstractions. The humble, noble-hearted woman whom the Holy Spirit overwhelms with His mystical favours helps us to preserve in the spirit of our Order the fervour of love which cleaves to reality, even to the reality of God. It is precisely this divine reality that must be born in us ; we must consecrate ourselves to it and we must bear witness to it before the world. St. Catherine. gives us no encouragement to relegate to a secondary plane that pursuit of truth which St. Thomas, following St. Dominic, placed first. Like them, she is eminently intellectual and rational.
Many other saints, many other blessed and venerable persons, have defined and have lived the Dominican ideal between the thirteenth century and our own. We shall speak of many in the following pages. But it is more particularly to these three great souls that we must turn to discover the characteristics that should mark our life, the principles and sentiments that must guide our conduct, in short, all that constitutes what we call our spirit.
III. WHAT CONSTITUTES THE DOMINICAN SPIRIT?
One word summarizes our spirit: it is the "motto" which appears at the top of the shield marked with the black and white cross. Veritas! We are the knighthood of truth.
Others have Pax or Caritas or Gloria Dei. None of these is outside the orbit of the Dominican soul, but she will reach them by the way of truth: it is in the light of truth that she looks at everything. Truth sets off and quickens the elements that she shares with other Christian forms of spirituality. A thirst for truth will be the ruling sentiment of our soul.
When we sing the praises of our Father, in a noble hymn every night after returning from our procession to the altar of Our Queen and Lady, Mary, we call St. Dominic "light of the Church, doctor of the Truth": we say that he pours forth the water of wisdom and that his preaching diffuses grace. And if we add that he was a "rose of patience" and "ivory of chastity," these are but the accompaniments of his fundamental vocation to be a man dedicated to the truth. He espoused the faith as St. Francis espoused poverty. (4) Whereas St. Benedict wished that "nothing should take precedence of the divine praise," St. Dominic placed study in the forefront of his own life and of ours. St. Bruno forsook the schools to seek the wildest solitude and to shut himself up there: Dominic founded his priories and convents in the heart of the town and particularly in university centres to study and teach there. St. Bernard, like St. Augustine, wished his monks to spend much time in manual work: St. Dominic did not hesitate to suppress such labours entirely in order that spiritual work alone should be undertaken.
All ancient observances that he retained are subordinated and adapted to the pursuit of truth. Francis of Assisi, putting poverty above all else, reproved a young disciple who wished to study theology, on the ground that possession of the requisite books would entail unfaithfulness to holy poverty. Dominic, on the other hand, looks upon poverty as a release from temporal anxieties to facilitate concentration upon study. Moreover, he authorizes his disciples to possess, as he did himself, the books which are the instruments of knowledge. Dominic, the former canon of Osma, attached though he was to choral prayer, nevertheless shortened the time set apart for the Divine Office to allow of more time for study.
Brother John of Navarre, who had known our Father intimately, solemnly deposed, during the process for his canonization, that both by word of mouth and by letter he often urged upon the friars continual study of theology and of the sacred Scriptures. St. Catherine of Siena in her Dialogue rejoices to hear the Eternal Father praise that love of science which characterizes the "barque" of Dominic. "Our Order is the first," said Humbert of Romans, "to have thus linked study to the religious life, prius habuit studium cum religione conjunction." (5)
It is not the pleasure of cultivating our mind that underlies our intellectual efforts: it is love of Him Who is the Truth itself, it is the love of God. Dominic seeks God in the sacred books where He has revealed Himself. Always, as he trod the highways which lead to Rome, he turned in search of God to the infallible Master of sacred doctrine.
"What is God?" was the oft-repeated question of the little child in whom the Dominican vocation was beginning to awake, and who was to work until the end of his life to compile the Summa of what man can know on that divine subject. "Our spirit," said St. Thomas, "must strive unceasingly to know God more and more." (6)
St. Catherine of Siena bids us gaze upon God with a wide-open eye, the pupil of which is faith. Even simple Tertiaries should be relatively better instructed and more intellectual than other Christians, and assuredly no Dominican soul worthy of the name will ever prefer sentimental dreams to the certainties of the faith.
Study ought to upraise us towards God and lead us on to contemplate His perfections, His government and His activity within us. This contemplation will be the highest expression of that appreciation of truth which characterizes the Dominican soul. It must be attempted even by those who cannot make long and profound meditation. To help them St. Dominic instituted the Rosary, which places the contemplation of the Christian mysteries within the reach of everyone. As Pere Lemonnyer notes with pleasure in his book upon the Friars Preachers, it was by Masters of Theology that this splendid devotion was restored and propagated in the fifteenth century. (7)
Although St. Dominic placed study above every other means, he did not wish liturgical prayer to be sacrificed to it. For he rightly recognized the divine Office as the chief method authoritatively established by the Church for raising the soul to God. Moreover, he was irresistibly attracted to it by his appetite for truth. The Office of the Choir, with High Mass as its centre, seemed to him a perfect harmony of rites and forms well calculated to foster those contemplative intuitions which study begets and which it is easy afterwards to prolong in private prayer. This theme we shall deal with more fully presently.
We shall also explain how this cherished truth, once known and lovingly contemplated, must influence our whole conduct. We must set ourselves with fervent zeal to live the truth, to spread the truth and to defend the truth.
Entirely taken up with God and with giving Him the first place in the realm of action as in the realm of prayer, and knowing himself only in God, in accordance with St. Catherine's advice, a Dominican is wholly intent upon following the grace which God gives him through Jesus Christ Our Lord and Our Lady and Virgin Mary, in order to actualize his Creator's idea. The intellectual virtue of prudence, of which St. Dominic was such a shining example both in his own life and in the organization of his Order, and to which St. Thomas consecrated a long Treatise in his Summa (thus differing from other moralists who only give a few pages to the subject), and which St. Catherine, a worthy sister of St. Thomas, so strongly urges on us under the name of "santa virtu della discretions" prudence, I repeat, that is to say the just appreciation of how to regulate our conduct, plays a leading part in the life of a Dominican soul. St. Paul's words, "doing the truth in charity," might well serve as its motto.
Treading in the footprints of St. Dominic, who was ever ready to preach and defend the truth, affiliated to the Order of Preachers, whom the Pope, in approving them, styled "Champions of the faith and lights of the world," every Dominican, even those of the Third Order, will be eager to enlighten those who are, deprived of the truth and also to avenge the truth when it is attacked.
Moreover, no one can be admitted to the Third Order until it is satisfactorily established that he is an orthodox Catholic and is zealous to promote and defend the truth of the faith to the best of his ability. Where these dispositions are lacking, there cannot be a Dominican vocation. And it is by developing them that we shall prove ourselves to be true sons of St. Dominic (II. 8).
Following the example of Our Lord on the night before His crucifixion, St. Dominic, as he lay dying, prayed for his children ; and he promised that he would continue to pray for them on high. Our Patriarch's petition might almost be summed up in Our Lord's supreme prayer: "Sanctifica eos in veritate: Sanctify them in the Truth!"
NOTES:
(1) Fr. Couturier in V Annie Dominicaine of July, 19345 p. 206.
(1) Fr. Couturier in V Annie Dominicaine of July, 19345 p. 206.
(2) Ila Ilae, q. 188, a. 6.
(3) FF. Rousselot and Huby, S.J., in Christus, 1 133.
(4) Dante, Pdradiso, XII, 61.
(5) Humbert, Opera, t. II, p. 29.
(6) De Trin.. II, i, ad 7.
(7) Les Freres Pr&heurs, p. 103.
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