On this eleventh Tuesday in the series of 15 Tuesdays in honor of our Holy Father St. Dominic, our reflection considers St. Dominic as Light of the Church, Lumen Ecclesiae, in light of the Resurrection.
If you are joining us after the beginning of the 15 Tuesdays, don’t worry! Fifteen weeks is a long time, and you can begin at any point to grow in love of God and devotion to St. Dominic through joining in.
“May the light of Christ rising in glory dispel the darkness of our hearts and minds.” —Prayer said by the priest while lighting the paschal candle from the newly blessed fire at the beginning of the Easter Vigil
It all started in darkness. A voice and a light pierce the blackness: “Lumen Christi!” Thrice this solemn chant sounds as the paschal candle advances through the otherwise lightless church. The hushed congregation waits in almost breathless anticipation as the light advances and the holy Easter fire is passed from taper to taper until the whole church is bright with the first light of Easter joy. Thus begins the solemn liturgical celebration of the Easter Vigil, recalling how it all started when Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ rose from the dead. The deathly darkness of the tomb fled before the bright light of Unconquerable Life…truly Jesus has risen, alleluia!
O Lumen! St. Dominic’s life too started in the darkness of obscurity, with a loving family, a beautiful and simple devotion to Our Lord and Our Lady from his youth, and then his years of education and serving as a priestly canon at the cathedral in Osma. But even from his earliest days, we have the testimony of his mother, Blessed Jane, who saw glimpses of the flame that would enlighten the whole world in her little son. According to tradition, before she conceived St. Dominic, she had a dream that she would have a son, represented by a dog with a torch in his mouth that ran across the whole world setting it on fire. This image becaume an artistic symbol of St. Dominic, representing the marvelous affect that his preaching and that of his Order would have on the whole world, darkened by the clouds of error and the confusion of pernicious heresy.
Veritas. Truth. It is the motto of the Dominican Order from the earliest days. In a unique and special way, St. Dominic was called and commissioned by the Church as a preacher of Truth. He received the invitation and generously responded to the call and need of his time, dedicating all that he had with unmatched zeal to spread the light of Truth among those “who dwell in darkness and the shadow of death.” St. Dominic preached the gospel of truth with his words and with his life, becoming so likened to Christ that in one of St. Catharine of Siena’s visions, God the Father compared Jesus and St. Dominic in these words:
“Beloved Daughter, I have begotten these two Sons: one by nature, the other by a sweet and tender adoption.” As Catharine was amazed at a comparison so elevated, which rendered equal so to speak, a saint with Jesus Christ—he who uttered these surprising words, explained them himself: “My Son engendered by nature from all eternity, when he assumed human nature, obeyed me in all things perfectly, until his death. Dominic, my son by adoption, from his birth until the last moment of his life, followed my will in all things. My Son by nature, who is the eternal Word from my mouth, preached publicly to the world whatever I charged him to say, and he rendered testimony to the Truth as he himself declared to Pilate. My adopted son Dominic also preached to the world the verity of my words; he spoke to heretics and to Catholics, not only personally but by others. His preaching continued in his successors, he still preaches and will always preach. My Son by nature sent his disciples, my son by adoption sent his religious; my Son by nature is my Word, my son by adoption is the herald, the minister of my Word. Therefore, I have given a quite particular intelligence of my words to him and to his religious with fidelity to follow them. My Son by nature did all things in order to promote by his teaching and his example the salvation of souls. Dominic my son by adoption, used all his endeavors to draw souls from vice and error. The salvation of the neighbor was his principal thought in the establishment and development of his Order. Hence, I have compared him to my Son by nature, whose life he imitated, and thou seest that even his body resembles the sacred Body of my divine Son. (The Life of St. Catharine of Siena by Blessed Raymond of Capua, O.P.)
Through imitation, contemplation and proclamation of the Word of Truth, St. Dominic became the Lumen Ecclesiae, the Light of the Church (as the special antiphon in his honor so aptly begins), and the darkness of error fled before the light of Truth that he preached so zealously. The poetic words invite our meditation, as we consider our Holy Father St. Dominic as a conduit of Jesus Himself especially as the Light and Truth.
It all started in darkness. But the Son rose triumphant, bringing abundant life and glorious light that dispels the darkness of hearts and minds in every corner of our world. As in the solemn beginnings of the Easter Vigil, the Easter fire is extended to each of us. Let us ask for the grace to be open and receive the bright light of Truth, to be like St. Dominic, giving ourselves generously to living as light in a world that desperately needs and desires Truth Himself!
Addendum: The O Lumen
O lumen Ecclesiae, Doctor veritatis,
Rosa patientiae, Ebur castitatis,
Aquam sapientiae, Propinasti gratis,
Praedicator gratiae, nos junge beatis.
Light of the Church, Teacher of Truth,
Rose of patience, Ivory of chastity.
You freely poured forth the waters of wisdom.
Preacher of grace, unite us with the blessed.
Additional Prayers
If you would like to observe this day with additional devotions, we have posted the following prayers in the past: