St. Dominic’s Daughters
The [religious order] of your Father Saint Dominic is all broad, all joyous, all fragrant; it is a garden of delights.
—God the Father to St. Catherine of Siena
The Dominican Charism
While drawing on monastic tradition in shaping our way of life, our Holy Father St. Dominic imbued the Dominican nuns with his own spirit. Three elements in particular permeate every moment of our life: burning zeal for the salvation of souls, an Augustinian emphasis on the common life, and our religious vows which consecrate us for worship of God.
St. Dominic and Zeal for Souls
“By their way of life both the friars and the nuns press onward to that perfect love of God and neighbor which is effective in caring for and obtaining the salvation of all people. As the Lord Jesus, the Savior of all, offered himself completely for our salvation, they consider themselves to be truly his members primarily when they are spending themselves totally for souls.”
“O God, what will become of sinners?” This was St. Dominic’s cry. “He seemed wholly absorbed in the salvation of souls, by all means and as many as he could,” it was said at his canonization process. Preaching by day and praying by night, St. Dominic’s heart burned with zeal for souls. Our Dominican saints reflect this zeal in their lives, and it inspires the hearts of all Dominicans today as we give ourselves in union with Christ for the salvation of souls.
How is this zeal refracted specifically in the hearts of cloistered contemplatives? This passage from our 1890 Perpetual Rosary Custom Book provides a vivid answer:
In founding the monasteries of his daughters, our Blessed Father Saint Dominic had chiefly in view to give them as auxiliaries to his sons in the great work of the conversion and sanctification of souls; for he knew that exterior works do not suffice to recall poor sinners to God, and that an intimate sap of contemplation, prayer, and penance is necessary to the evangelical ministry. Offspring of this deep thought of our Blessed Father, let us never forget that we should be the helpers of our Fathers; let us spend for this noble end all that God will allow us of life; our prayers, tears, sufferings, humiliations, fasts, disciplines, penances, our obedience, and especially our Rosaries.
We see then, it is a spirit of zeal for souls that should continually animate us. . . . Let us then enter fully into this supernatural devotedness and give ourselves with ardor to the pursuit of the most generous virtues; in order that, working at our own sanctification, we may become at the same time through the intercession of Mary, instruments in the hands of God for the salvation of souls.
Common Life
“The following things, then, we direct you, who live in the monastery, to observe. First that you dwell together in unity in the monastery, and be of one mind and heart in the Lord, since this is the end for which you are come here.”
St. Augustine had a special genius for the common life. From the earliest days of his conversion, to live with likeminded friends contemplating the Truth was the deep desire of his heart. Like the Apostolic community in Jerusalem, his ideal was common life and prayer in worship of God. This vision of religious life shaped St. Dominic in his early life as a Canon Regular following the Rule of St. Augustine, and is at the heart of the Dominican life he founded.
In distinction from the “monos” of the desert monasticism, in which “monos” (Greek for “one”) indicates the solitary monk, in Augustianian religious life the “one” indicates the unity of charity in community. In Dominican life this is reflected especially in our manner of government, the first in the Church to be ordered fraternally, with the brothers or sisters striving to move forward together with elected superiors for limited terms, and the chapter (or assembly of solemnly professed religious) playing a more important role in the life of the community.
What does common life look like on a daily basis? First of all, obedience provides the principle of order in our community life under one head, so that as we follow the daily horarium we are united in fulfilling the duties of our charges and any special instructions of our prioress: “Yes, Mother, right away!” By humbly seeking the good of our Sisters in the details of daily life (whether pleasant or annoying), we strive to have our community life marked by a double spirit of joy and tender fraternal charity. In this way our chastity can increase our pure love for Christ and for each other. Finally, poverty unites us in seeking the common good and not our own particular interests. Each one possesses nothing of her own, but receives what she needs from the common store, whether this means eating from the common table in the refectory, or doing the laundry and keeping clothing and other supplies in common.
“The whole community, united as it is in the love of the Lord, should become a radiant center of charity to all.”
Vows
“The vow of obedience is preeminent among the evangelical counsels, because by virtue of this vow, a person consecrates herself wholly to God; its acts approach more closely the goal of our profession, which is perfect love.”
What does it mean to give oneself to God in religious life? Essentially, we give ourselves by means of the vows. A vow is a solemn promise made to God to renounce something good for the sake of a higher, supernatural good. Why make a vow rather than simply live the same practices of the religious life without a vow? St. Thomas explains: “As [Pope St.] Gregory says, religious perfection requires that a man give his whole life to God. But a man cannot actually give God his whole life, because that life taken as a whole is not simultaneous but successive. Hence a man cannot give his whole life to God otherwise than by the obligation of a vow” (ST II.II.186.6ad2).
Over time, the conversion of life practiced in monastic life was identified with the three key evangelical counsels, or advice given by Our Lord in the Gospel about following Him more closely. The three religious vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience renounce things that are good but that in this fallen world can be an obstacle to the full outpouring of giving and receiving God’s love. Poverty frees us from attachment to material things, chastity from the physical and emotional absorption and demands of married life, obedience from the domination of our own autonomy in order to surrender to God’s will made known through the will of our superiors according to the Rule and Constitutions. By these vows, we surrender our external goods, our bodies, and our very selves to God.
As Dominicans, we make profession explicitly only of the vow of obedience, which includes the observance of poverty and chastity. As the knights of old, we kneel before our superior, place our hands in hers atop the Book of Constitutions, and make profession and promise obedience “until death.” Our Dominican obedience is that of “children, free in the liberty of divine grace” (Rule of St. Augustine), united with the obedience of Jesus and Mary for the salvation of souls; our chastity should be radiant and life-giving, like that of our Holy Father St. Dominic; our poverty is expressed in frugality and generosity with our common possessions.
Most of all, our vows consecrate us to God, making every one of our actions an act of worship of Him. In this way, religious consecration is a fulfillment of the consecration of our baptism and confirmation, which indelibly mark us as belonging to God and enable us to share in Christ’s worship of the Father in the Spirit. Thus every action of our life as nuns is consecrated to God as an act of worship. As Fr. William Hinnebusch, O.P. says, all the rest of our religious observances become “rubrics of the sacrifice” of ourselves in love for God.