St Dominic Part 2: Celebrating St Dominic through Poetry.

 CELEBRATING ST DOMINIC GUZMAN SERIES.

St Dominic:
Celebrating St Dominic Guzman Series Icon.

ST DOMINIC GUZMAN

This year we celebrate the eighth centenary of the death of Saint Dominic, who died in Bologna on 6th August, 1221. His feast day is celebrated on 3^rd August in Australia but on 8^th August for the rest of the universal church.

Over the next few weeks,  I will share with you  information about  St Dominic which I have acquired from our church notices The Dominican     Some art you may not have seen, some extracts from contemporary documents about Dominic, prayers to St Dominic and some other delights.

In this post we consider some of the qualities of St Dominic through poetry.

 

Surely the greatest of the poets inspired by Dominic’s life was Dante Alighieri (you might say, Italy’s Shakespeare) who described our patron as l’amoroso drudo de la fede cristiana, il santo atleta – “the loving bridegroom of the Christian Faith, the holy athlete.” (Paradiso, XII, 11,50) Although a Life of St Dominic in verse appeared in both medieval French and English, nothing quite rises to the magnificence of Dante. In modern times, however, Dominic has inspired a number of poets in English. Over the next few weeks, we will share a few.

HOMMAGE TO A SAINT He was a man who wept. And in his tears glistened, all saw, love human and tender, human because divine, divine because wrung from prayer, from an agony of truth. ‘Ah Lord, what will become of sinners?’ Alone he waited, in a place he could not convert, carrying alone, through the years of disappointment, a task that had seemed begun.

The Word of God burned in him fiercer than fire, deeper than flood, banishing fear and comfort; a Word uttered in silence, echoing still, breaking the night into groans of entreaty. This, then, was Dominic, his signature barely visible on the scrolls of history; a trace of a smile still lingers over the vineyards where they tried to kill him, but found death died in his eagerness to die.

He founded an Order, people say, Say rather: friended. He was their friend, and so at last, in spite of themselves, they came. He gave them an Order to found. Those eyes, wet with the tears of truth, knew Truth. And Truth – seeking still to become frail flesh – did not disdain to clothe itself in the very disappointments, the indifference and inadequacy of others.

The faith of God in humankind makes, every now and then, someone come true. And then a heart is rhythmed to the very beat of God, a mind to truth, and a mouth to gospel, wooing the matter of humans to God.

Such a man was Dominic, messenger of God’s love, a carrier of his infinite pain and hope, a hurricane and a haven, hurling torrents of peace through the civilized corridors of comfortable half-truths of plump correctness and wizened zeal; to dwellers in ancient darkness long familiar, a disturbing possibility of day.

And yet, after all, a man. A man at home with popes and peasants and fading gentlewomen, a man of beautiful hands and ungrey head, ‘The night for God, the day was for his friends’, nemo communior, so they said in wonder so still they forgot to wonder. Emmanuel, God with us, God like us: the ordinary always the vehicle of Infinity.

Such a one was Dominic, not loud in the display of strange religion, loud only in his mere humanity, too mere for ‘sanctity’, too mere for chroniclers to tell of much, too mere to hide the dewfall of God’s light. A fragrance still, still fragrance of far home, to exiles stooped to very grave-side of forgetfulness sudden remembrance – Ah! What will become of sinners? Pray, pray for us, bearer of the torch, pray for us sinners, pray for our world of drab.

Simon Tugwell, The Way of the Preacher (Prouille 1977) Published by Darton Longman & Todd  

 

In our parish notices ‘The Dominican’, there is a delightful insert for the children and young at heart which you can download here.   You will find it on page 4 of the supplement.