Word to the Wise
Thursday, July 11, 2024 - Thursday in the 14th Week in Ordinary Time
[Hos 11:1-4, 8e-9 and Matt 10:7-15]"As you go, make this proclamation: 'The Kingdom of heaven is at hand.' Cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, drive out demons. Without cost you have received; without cost you are to give. Do not take gold or silver or copper for your belts; no sack for the journey, nor a second tunic, or sandals, or walking stick. The laborer deserves his keep...."
JULY 11 ST. BENEDICT, abbot
It is part of Dominican legend that one of the few books that St. Dominic carried with him was a copy of the Gospel According to Matthew. He founded an order whose two primary ministries at the time were itinerant preaching from place to place and presence at major universities. Regardless of which of those two ministries a brother was in, he was expected to beg door to door for his daily bread!!! The Latin verb mendicare means "to beg," and that is what early Dominicans and Franciscans did. The door to door way eventually gave way because communities needed more stable resources so that the preaching would not be distracted. The ideals in Jesus' instructions to the apostles are addressed in different ways now. The descriptions of the early Christian communities in the Acts of the Apostles [2:42-47 and 4:32-35] remain guiding principles in religious life. Our approach represented something entirely different from that of St. Benedict whose feast is celebrated today. Benedictine monasteries were expected to be self-sustaining. In the Dominican order, the monastic aspect is still represented in the Rule of St. Augustine and in the cloistered Dominican nuns whose life of prayer supports the friars' and apostolic sisters' itinerant ministry.
St. Dominic's approach had a practical basis. The heretical sect that was gaining converts in Southern France, and was a catalyst to the idea of the Dominican Order, had preachers who were austere beggars. The official Church preachers were abbots and bishops who traveled in style and were losing ground in the effort to combat the heresy. The first Dominican preachers were to live like the heretical preachers!
In all of this, the lifestyle of any disciple of Jesus should reflect the values of the Sermon on the Mount and respond to the needs expressed in Matthew 25:31-45 - the scene of the Last Judgment. A bumper sticker I once saw expresses it well: "Live simply so that others may simply live!" AMEN