For Dominicans who seek to retrace the footsteps of St. Dominic, a key place on the journey is a terrace that overlooks the breathtakingly beautiful terrain of Southern France in the tiny village of Fanjeaux. There in 1206 St. Dominic saw high in the sky overlooking the valley, the “Seignadou” or the sign of God, in the form of a fiery ball of light that sent its rays over the countryside below it. It was this vision of a great fire illuminating the world that made clear to St. Dominic his mission, to form a community of brothers and sisters who would bring the light of Christ to all people through the grace-filled preaching of the Gospel of Jesus.
Often in Dominican lore, St. Dominic is presented as a practical man who knew how to get things done, whether it was helping to arrange a royal wedding for a bride from Scandinavia, or bringing forth arguments in an all-night conversation with an innkeeper about the truths of the Catholic faith, or deciding upon a religious rule flexible enough to accommodate the needs of preachers on the move. Not often do we regard him as a visionary, but that is exactly who he was. He saw an extraordinary need in the Church in his time that was not being met and responded to it. In thirteenth-century Europe, far too many men and women were without a solid knowledge of the faith. This led sincere men and women who were anxious to follow Jesus to leave the Church through their false understanding of our Catholic faith. St. Dominic saw this and recognized the need for a different kind of religious order.
St. Dominic de Guzmán by Claudio Coello, c. 1670. Collection of the Prado National Museum.
This new order would be committed to study and the pursuit of the truth, not a truth that was to be contemplated merely in the quiet of a monastic cloister, but one that was to be proclaimed to ordinary Christians. It would call also for a new kind of religious life, where brothers would leave the structured life of the cloister to go to where the people were, especially to the new towns that were spreading across Europe.
It was a remarkable innovation, a preaching order committed to the study of the Holy Scriptures and the riches of our Catholic tradition. It would be study the brothers would not simply keep to themselves but share. They would offer to others a Truth that would be a life-giving Word, namely Jesus Christ himself, who crucified and risen, calls us into a new life with God himself.
For more than eight hundred years, the Dominican Order has embraced the vision of St. Dominic in bringing the light of Christ to the people of our world. For more than eighty years the brothers of the Province of St. Albert the Great have been doing the same. Just as St. Dominic gazed upon the fiery sky from the terrace of Fanjeaux, so the brothers of St Albert the Great are searching for ways to bring that brilliant light to the people of our time. We are thinking creatively and boldly how we can bring the Gospel of Jesus, the Truth who is Christ Jesus himself, to those who come to the parishes, schools, and ministries where we currently serve.
As we prepare for our next provincial chapter in the spring of 2027, we are looking to see where the divine fire in the sky may be drawing us. In seeking to remain faithful always to the vision of St. Dominic, we are asking ourselves in what new ways, in what new places, and in what new communities can we offer to others the life-giving Truth of the Gospel that St. Dominic did so joyfully in his life. A happy and blessed feast of St. Dominic!
Fr. Michael Mascari, OP