Word to the Wise
Monday, November 7, 2022 -
[Sirach 44:1-15 or 2 Cor. 6:4-10 and Mark 10:28-30]All these were glorious in their time, illustrious in their day. Some of them left behind a name so that people recount their praises. Of others no memory remains, for when they perished, they perished, as if they had never lived, they and their children after them. Yet these also were godly; their virtues have not been forgotten. [Sirach]
MONDAY, NOVEMBER 7, 2022 ALL SAINTS OF THE DOMINICAN ORDER
[Sirach 44:1-15 or 2 Corinthians 6:4-10 and Mark 10:28-30. This is a feast proper to the Dominican Order. Scriptures will be different at non-Dominican locales.]
When I entered the Dominican novitiate at Winona, MN, in August of 1964, most of the canonized Dominican saints were individually represented in the stained glass windows of the chapel. Now it would take a very large church with almost an acre of wall space to fit them all in (saints and "blesseds" as well). Pope St. John Paul II canonized some groups of martyrs in the Far East that included Dominican friars in Vietnam, Korea, Japan and China. Whereas once we had only one feast day for all the martyrs of the Orient, now we have several!
Figures such as St. Dominic (our founder), St. Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Martin De Porres, St. Catherine of Siena and St. Rose of Lima are more or less well-known. St. Pius Pius V, St. John of Cologne, St. Louis Bertrand, St. Juan Macias, St. Margaret Costello, St. Agnes of Montepulciano, St. Catherine DeRicci and St. Lawrence Ruiz (among Filipinos) might be known. Others would draw a "Who?" response. But they were all my brothers and sisters in the Order of Preachers - our formal title and source of the O.P. after our name.
800+ years of existence (we were founded in 1216) is enough to produce saints and scoundrels in any organization. Today we celebrate the saints. The scoundrels we leave to embarrassed history. But, if our culture has "halls of fame" for just about every endeavor, we Dominicans have our own. There is someone for every brother and sister to admire, Our own campus ministry community here in Lubbock, TX, has Bl. PIer Giorgio Frassati as its patron - a man who died as a young adult. Today we Dominicans salute them all - young and old, short and tall - and do our best to carry on the mission, as they did, "to praise, to bless and to preach!" AMEN
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