Saint Dominic
Founder of the Order of Preachersc. 1170–1221
Feast · August 8
Life
Dominic was born about 1170 at Caleruega, in Old Castile; Pope Leo XII confirmed the cult of his mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, in 1828. Ordained a priest, he joined the canons of the cathedral of Osma and in 1198 was made subprior of the chapter. In 1203 or 1204 he went with his bishop, Diego of Acebo, on a diplomatic mission to Denmark, and on the way home the two men resolved to work for the conversion of the Cathars of southern France.
From 1206 Dominic preached in the Lauragais and the Languedoc, on foot and in poverty. Late that year he and Diego settled at Prouilhe, below the hill of Fanjeaux, and gathered a community of women, some of whom had left the Cathar houses; they lodged for a time at Fanjeaux until the buildings at Prouilhe could be lived in, and the first sure date in the life of the community is April 17, 1207. Tradition says that Dominic saw a ball of fire come down several times over Prouilhe from the place on the hill now called the Seignadou, “the sign of God,” and took it as a sign for his mission.
In 1215 Pierre Seilhan, a citizen of Toulouse, gave Dominic his house near the Narbonnais castle, and the first brothers settled there that spring; Bishop Foulques gave them written authority to preach in his diocese. Dominic went to Rome at the time of the Fourth Lateran Council, and on December 22, 1216, Pope Honorius III confirmed the Order of Preachers.
Dominic died at the convent of Saint Nicholas in Bologna on August 6, 1221, at about fifty-one. In 1267 his remains were placed in the marble shrine carved by Nicola Pisano, the Arca di San Domenico, in the basilica of San Domenico, where they rest today.
Further reading: Rocamadour: A Pilgrim’s Guide to Our Lady of Rocamadour; Mary Magdalene in Provence: The Tradition and the Shrines.
Cult and relics
Pope Gregory IX canonized Dominic on July 3, 1234. His feast, kept on August 4 in the calendar in force before 1969, is now August 8. Dominican tradition holds that the Virgin Mary gave him the rosary in a vision at Prouilhe in 1208; historians credit the Dominicans with spreading the rosary and do not attribute its origin to Dominic himself.
The monastery of Prouilhe was razed in the Revolution so thoroughly that only one keystone survives. Its rebuilding was a personal project of Lacordaire, who restored the Dominicans in France, and Dominican nuns live there again; since February 2, 2003, the community has received sisters of several nationalities. At Toulouse the house of Pierre Seilhan opens to visitors on set afternoons, and the crypt of Saint-Sernin keeps a crucifix venerated as Saint Dominic’s, which seventeenth-century accounts say he carried at the battle of Muret in 1213.
In art
Dominic is shown in the white habit and black cloak of his order, often with the rosary and with a dog carrying a flaming torch, from a dream his mother had before his birth. At Toulouse the cathedral of Saint-Étienne has a chapel built in his honor around 1340, with his image on the keystone, and a window of 1962 that shows him with Saint Thomas Aquinas and Saint Vincent Ferrer. A stone statue of Dominic stands at the Seignadou, below Fanjeaux.
Where to pray
- FanjeauxThe hill village where he lived and preached from 1206, with the Seignadou and its statue of the saint, and the church that keeps the beam of the miracle of fire told by tradition.
- ProuilheThe monastery of Sainte-Marie de Prouilhe, the first house of the order, rebuilt after the Revolution, where about fifteen Dominican nuns pray today.
- ToulouseThe house of Pierre Seilhan on the Place du Parlement, where the first brothers lived in 1215, and the crypt of Saint-Sernin with the crucifix venerated as his.
On our ways: Prouilhe, Toulouse, Fanjeaux, Carcassonne.