Saint Dominic

Saint Dominic de Guzmán was a priest from Castile and the founder of the Order of Preachers, whose members are called Dominicans. The Roman Martyrology says of him that he lived in voluntary poverty, humbly served the ministry of preaching, and always spoke with God or about God. The Church commemorates him on August 8.

He was born around 1170 in Caleruega in Old Castile, into a noble family. With the help of an uncle who was a priest, he studied at the renowned school of Palencia, where he grew especially devoted to Sacred Scripture. When people were dying during a severe famine, he sold his precious books and used the money to help the starving. After his ordination to the priesthood he became a canon of the cathedral chapter of Osma, his home diocese.

Bishop Diego of Osma took him along on diplomatic missions to northern Europe entrusted to him by the King of Castile. On the way, Dominic saw how the Albigensian heresy was spreading in southern France; its followers despised matter, rejected the sacraments, and denied the Incarnation of Christ. Pope Innocent III asked him to preach the faith precisely among them. Dominic took up this mission, living in poverty, preaching the Gospel, and holding public disputations, and after Bishop Diego’s death he was left on his own. At the end of 1206, women converted from the heresy settled at Prouille to lead a religious life, and Dominic took them under his care.

In 1215 he settled with a group of companions in Toulouse, and Bishop Fulk of Toulouse approved their community. That same year Dominic accompanied him to the Fourth Lateran Council. The brothers adopted the Rule of Saint Augustine, and on December 22, 1216, Pope Honorius III approved the new order. In 1217 Dominic sent his few brothers out across Europe, many of them to university cities such as Paris and Bologna, because he wanted preachers to be well educated. In Rome he received Saint Hyacinth Odrowąż into the order and entrusted him with spreading it in Poland, where Blessed Ceslaus worked with him.

The brothers lived in poverty as a mendicant order, and their superiors were elected by chapters in which all shared responsibility for the community. The founder himself wished to be called simply Brother Dominic. His successor, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, wrote that he gave the day to his neighbor and the night to God. Dominic fostered devotion to the Mother of God, and his spiritual sons spread the Rosary; a later tradition holds that it was Mary who gave him this prayer.

In Bologna he presided over the first general chapters of the order in 1220 and 1221. He died there on August 6, 1221, worn out by his labors, when the order was already present in many countries of Europe. Bologna, where his tomb is located, declared him its patron. Pope Gregory IX, who had known him personally, canonized him in 1234.