St. Dominic

St. Dominic was born around 1170 at Caleruega in Castile, Spain. Educated at Palencia, where as a student he is said to have sold his books to feed the poor during a famine, he became a canon of the cathedral of Osma and lived a disciplined life of prayer and study. His path changed in 1203, when he accompanied his bishop, Diego of Osma, on diplomatic journeys through southern France and encountered the Albigensian (Cathar) movement, whose teaching denied the goodness of the material world. Dominic recognized that preaching against error would be credible only if joined to evangelical simplicity of life. He remained in the Languedoc for years, preaching on foot and in poverty, debating patiently, and gathering companions, as well as founding a community of women converts at Prouille. From this labor grew his great work: the Order of Preachers, confirmed by Pope Honorius III in 1216. Dominic's vision was novel—an order of educated friars, bound to poverty and community prayer, sent out to preach wherever souls needed the truth of the Gospel. With striking boldness he dispersed his small band to the university cities of Paris and Bologna, and the order spread across Europe within his lifetime. Dominic himself traveled ceaselessly, governing the friars, preaching, and spending his nights in prayer; his brethren remembered that he spoke only to God or about God. A long-standing tradition credits Dominic with promoting the Rosary, and Marian devotion has remained central to the Dominican family, though historians note that the Rosary as we know it developed gradually in later centuries. Worn out by his labors, Dominic died at Bologna on August 6, 1221, and was canonized in 1234 by Pope Gregory IX, who had known him personally. His tomb, the magnificent Arca di San Domenico in the Basilica of San Domenico in Bologna, remains a place of pilgrimage. His feast is celebrated on August 8, and he is honored as a patron of astronomers and of the Dominican Republic.