Blessed Jordan of Saxony

Blessed Jordan of Saxony was a Dominican, a priest, and the second Master of the Order of Preachers, the immediate successor of Saint Dominic. His preaching drew many students and masters of the universities of his day into the Order. The Roman Martyrology commemorates him on February 13.

He was born at the end of the twelfth century in Germany, most probably at Burgberg near Dassel. The year of his birth is not known: historians give dates from about 1175 to 1190. He studied in Paris, where he became a master of arts and a bachelor of theology. In 1219 he met Saint Dominic there, made his confession to him, and on his advice received ordination as a deacon.

It was the preaching of Blessed Reginald of Orléans that drew him to the Order. He received the habit on Ash Wednesday, February 12, 1220, at the priory of Saint-Jacques in Paris, together with his friend Henry of Cologne. Only two months later he traveled to Bologna for the first general chapter. In 1221 he became provincial of Lombardy, and in 1222, less than a year after the death of Saint Dominic, the general chapter in Paris elected him Master of the Order.

He led the Order for fifteen years. He visited the priories in Italy, France, Germany, and England, presided over chapters, and founded new houses, and under his government the number of provinces rose to twelve. He preached above all in university cities such as Paris, Bologna, Padua, and Oxford. The tradition of the Order says that more than a thousand friars received the habit from his hands. Among them was Saint Albert the Great, who had listened to his sermons in Padua.

He drew up the constitutions of the Order and cared for the studies of the friars. He decreed that the antiphon “Salve Regina” be sung after Compline in honor of the Mother of God. In 1233, in Bologna, he carried out the solemn translation of the relics of Saint Dominic, who was canonized a year later. He also cared for the nuns: with Blessed Diana degli Andalò he founded the monastery of Saint Agnes in Bologna.

He is the first historian of his Order. His “Libellus de principiis Ordinis Praedicatorum,” that is, the “Little Book on the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers,” is the oldest account of the life of Saint Dominic and of the community’s first years. Popes Benedict XVI and Francis have drawn on it. Fifty of Jordan’s letters to Blessed Diana also survive, a witness to Dominican spirituality and to the fraternal bond between brothers and sisters, as does his prayer to Saint Dominic.

Toward the end of his life he visited the friars in the Holy Land. On the way back, on February 13, 1237, his ship was wrecked in a storm, and Jordan drowned together with two of his brethren. The Roman Martyrology states that this happened near Ptolemais, today’s Acre. His body, which the sea cast ashore, was buried in the Dominican church there. The cult paid to him from the time of his death was confirmed on May 10, 1826, by Pope Leo XII, which is equivalent to beatification.