St. Louis Bertrand

We could choose almost any Dominican saint to highlight the Rosary! St. Louis Bertrand is very dear to the Sisters in the Novitiate, since he is the patron of Dominican Novice Masters and Novice Mistresses.  On his feast day, October 9, the Novitiate enjoys a much-anticipated day of celebration.

The saint himself is very worthy of celebrating.  Thirsting for God from his youth, he overcame his father’s opposition to enter the Order of Preachers at age eighteen and quickly became a model friar aspiring to holiness.  Prayer, recollection, penance and mortification, ardent thoughts of God all became his daily bread, leading his superiors to appoint him as novice master shortly after his ordination to the priesthood.  With the novices, he tempered his earnestness with kindness, while leading them ardently on the path to holiness.  Much to their dismay, zeal for souls then led St. Louis to volunteer for the missions of South America, where he spent seven years preaching and working miracles before returning again to Spain.  There he served for a time as prior, and as novice master once more.

Concerning the Rosary, his biographer says, “His own love for the Rosary was like that of St. Dominic himself.  He constantly recited the mysteries himself with the utmost devotion, taught the use of the Rosary to his converts, and considered the success of his preaching depended on the intercession of Our Lady of the Rosary.  Many miraculous favours were granted to those who devoutly used rosaries that had been blessed by the servant of God.  After his return to Valencia the Saint gave a Rosary to a friend of his and bid him preserve it with care and reverence, ‘because in the Indies this chaplet cured the sick, converted sinners, and I think also,’ he added, ‘raised the dead to life.’”  After many decades of zealous service of God and Our Lady, St. Louis Bertrand died in 1581 at the age of fifty-five.  We invoke his powerful intercession for our novice mistress and for many good and persevering vocations to the Dominican life.