Memorial of St. Dominic
There was puzzlement that the Jesuit Cardinal Bergoglio should take the name “Francis” as pope. Yet this was a very Jesuit thing to do: St. Ignatius explicitly modeled himself on his two heroes, Sts. Francis and Dominic.
Both these tremendous founders emerged from the depths of the contemplative, monastic ages to bring the light of those centuries of secluded prayer into the marketplace. For St. Dominic and his spiritual family, preaching and teaching would be the vehicle for bringing that light of contemplation into the world: “Contemplata tradere aliis,” to pass on to others the things one has contemplated. From the intellectual and mystical heights of St. Thomas Aquinas or St. Catherine of Siena, this mission extends to that most popular of prayer forms, the most holy rosary.
There is a certain St. Francis – of the wolf and the birds – that adorns our gardens with statues. There are few images in today’s world of him receiving the stigmata at La Verna! Today the Church calls our attention to this “other” saint of a tremendous spiritual and intellectual fecundity that reaches to our times in the work of his order, in the theology we study, into the very rosary in our hands. Who knows – if there is ever another Jesuit pope, he could well take the name Pope Dominic and bring even greater prominence to one of the Church’s greatest founders.