Today’s celebration of the Solemnity of St. Dominic is so rich in prayer that a homily seems a bit unnecessary. Indeed, it is not what I will say that matters but what God wants each one here to hear. And that I have no control over. So all I can do is pray that somehow or another, you all do hear what it is you’re supposed to hear.
One of the characteristics of Dominican spirituality noted by Edward Schillebeeckx, OP
(Dominican Spirituality, p.5) is belief in the absolute priority of God's grace in any human action. There must be no obsessive concern with the self but absolute trust in God. If I can trust God more than myself, the result will be a tranquil and happy spirituality. I believe St. Dominic did exactly that.
He trusted God to give him the words to engage the Albagensians in respectful disputation and convert them to accept the goodness of all God created and turn from the dualistic view that only the spiritual was good, and the body was evil. Dominic played no part in the Inquisition and Crusades; the Dominican motto, Veritas, did not endorse those atrocities. However, we humans, even we Dominicans, can easily lapse into dualistic thinking that neatly separates people and groups of people into good and evil. We may wrestle with the question, “What is truth?” I am ever so grateful that Jesus answered that question by simply saying, “I am the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)
So, it’s impossible for the truth to ever be cruel or judgmental or any of those other things we sometimes associate with it. It's not a bad thing to keep wrestling, challenging oneself, and testing one's authenticity.
I pray that Jesus will live in me more and more each day until there is only his truth residing in me.
I recommend going to your bookshelf or wherever you have folders of things past because there are some gems there, including one I found in my folder from a NED6 (North East Dominican) gathering in 2006. We had a program where several Dominican Saints “spoke.” I’m not going to read the whole thing, but just the beginning to give you a flavor and tempt you to see if you still have this paper. Here is the excerpt (Author unknown).
I am Dominic Guzman. My dear Sisters, like you, I spent much of my life searching for truth and trying to be faithful to that truth, all at a time when much untruth was being preached. Then, just like now, it was so easy to split into some dualistic thinking. It seems we human beings have always yearned for the comfort of knowing it’s either one way or the other, right or wrong, good or bad, “them” or “us.”
It seems so logical to look at the world and life, live, and die that way. And so often, we slip right into dualisms without even knowing it. In my day, there was a huge dispute about the true nature of Jesus. As you know, the Albigensian heresy taught that Jesus was wholly God and not at all human. These people believed that human nature and matter were weak and rooted in evil. Our bodies, our human natures, were to be conquered. This heresy, this dualism, threatened the true understanding of incarnation --that God is in the flesh, alive in our very bodies, and that all matter is sacred.
I will leave it at that and see if you can find it. If you can’t, I’d be happy to make copies.
– Sister Lesley Block, OP
Sister Lesley is a counselor at a group residence
for adults suffering from mental illness.