The activity of preaching flows from an intimate encounter with the living Word, says Fr Kevin O’Reilly OP
There are certain similarities between the world in which St Dominic de Guzman lived and our own world. St Dominic founded the Order of Preachers in response to the Albigensian/Cathar heresy, a heresy that flourished not least because of the absence of informed preaching and lived example.
This heresy was essentially dualistic. Thus, for example, it taught that human beings were spirits trapped in material bodies. This view of the human person bears great similarity to the understanding that, to a large extent, characterises contemporary Western culture.
Dominic was hugely successful in converting heretics by means of persuasion and example and quickly drew a band of followers to join him in his mission of preaching the truth of the faith.
Early on Dominic established a group of women into a monastic community. Throughout the last eight hundred years, therefore, the genius of the Order has been cultivated by the prayer and activity of both men and women under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
Privilege
What a great privilege to have been chosen as one of St Dominic’s band of followers in order to preach the Gospel in the fullness of its integrity! I came late, by a circuitous route, to the Order. Through all that searching. However, Divine Providence finally led me to my true spiritual home.
It is telling that the early Dominicans were slow to get Dominic canonised. Like Dominic, they clearly placed faith in Christ above and before all other things. Thankfully, however, they eventually saw the importance of having Dominic’s sanctity officially recognised by the Church.
There is a lesson for us here. Dominic’s focus was on preaching Christ. He was not interested in forming a cult that would worship him as a hero.
Dominic saw, moreover, the importance of intellectual formation for the task of preaching the Gospel. He understood the role that rational knowledge about God’s revelation can play in persuading non-believers and those who have lapsed in their practice of the faith.
One of the keys to reconquering our age for Christ has to be a recovery of the thought of the jewel in the theological crown of the Dominican Order, namely St Thomas Aquinas”
The Catholic faith has a specific content. It is a well-known fact that catechesis in this content has been severely lacking in recent decades. Meanwhile, many of those who have walked away from the faith have in effect not rejected the faith itself but rather a false understanding of it.
One of the keys to reconquering our age for Christ has to be a recovery of the thought of the jewel in the theological crown of the Dominican Order, namely St Thomas Aquinas. St Thomas has been my own intellectual mentor for many years.
Furnishes
While he is rigorously rational, it is nevertheless the Word of God in Scripture that furnishes the wellsprings of his thought. He does not cherry-pick verses of Scripture to support conclusions that he wishes to argue for; rather, he begins with Scripture and illumines the significance of revelation in dialogue with a plethora of sources, Christian and pagan.
Things don’t end there, however. For Thomas’s thought is animated by a deep-flowing mystical current. It is no accident that the great Spanish mystic, St John of the Cross, was formed in Thomistic thought when he studied in Salamanca and that his mystical work is in various important respects grounded in the thought of St Thomas.
Dominic spent his nights in prayer. Thomas had a famous mystical experience while celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass at Naples, the culmination, one might say, of his life of contemplation. One ought not to forget St Catherine of Siena. Others have contributed to the great flow of the Western mystical tradition, among whom John Tauler and Bl. Henry Suso stand out. A neglected classic in mystical literature is The Cross of Jesus by Louis Chardon.
In his magnum opus, St Thomas has a question on the contemplative life. While he insists in the first article of this question on the fact that contemplation pertains essentially to the intellect, most of the focus is on the need for rightly ordered appetites for the contemplative life.
Infused contemplation, in other words, cannot be divorced from the life of virtue: the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity; and the cardinal virtues of prudence, justice, fortitude, and temperance. This point seems to have been forgotten.
The theological and other infused virtues are perfected by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord”
One must say something similar with regard to discernment, although Thomas does not use this word – he speaks instead of prudence, that virtue that perfects practical reason. Lack of temperance in matters sexual in particular undermines one’s ability to discern the Lord’s will properly – a point of no small importance at a time when some in the Church fail to communicate clearly the Church’s Scripturally based teaching in this regard.
The theological and other infused virtues are perfected by the Gifts of the Holy Spirit: wisdom, understanding, knowledge, counsel, fortitude, piety, and fear of the Lord. Interestingly, the great Dominican theologian of the last century, Réginald Garrigou-Lagrange, delineates the mystical ascent in terms of the Gifts in his masterpiece, Christian Perfection and Contemplation.
This contemplation – which entails serious study – is not for its own sake, however. Hence the famous phrase: contemplata aliis tradere – to give unto others the fruits of one’s contemplation. The activity of preaching flows from an intimate encounter with the living Word of God in Scripture, an encounter that engages the whole person – intellect, will, and emotions (passions). Indeed, it involves both body and soul in their dynamic unity.
Centrality
The absolute centrality of Christ and adherence to the fullness of the one true faith; contemplation of the Word of God in Scripture, nourished by intellectual enquiry that draws on a variety of disciplines, principally philosophy; a life of virtue, without which this contemplation is not possible in any meaningful way; and, a burning desire to convert the whole world for Christ – these are some traits that render the Dominican Order pre-eminently suited to the task of delivering the world and, indeed, the Church, from the heresies that assail our times. What an amazing gift it is to be called to serve the Church as a Dominican!
Fr Kevin O’Reilly, OP is Head of Moral Theology in the Pontifical University of St Thomas Aquinas (Angelicum) in Rome