Contemplari et contemplata aliis tradere – To contemplate and to hand on to others the fruits of contemplation. The motto of the Dominican Order signifies the movements that mark the Dominican life: the Holy Spirit fills the friar’s heart in prayer, impels him outward to share those gifts with others, then calls him inward to be filled anew. The Dominican contemplative is one who sees all things as lit from within by the light of Christ, and who longs to make that inner light known to all. The Dominican’s mission is something like the painter’s: to reveal the extraordinary by presenting the ordinary, to lead others to encounter the impossible beauty in which they live.
Dominicana is the fruit of the Dominican student brothers’ desire to learn about God by contemplating the world in His light, and to share what we have seen with others. It is a living experiment of grace – or rather, an experiment of living in grace. We are students, and do not pretend to be masters in the subjects we discuss, yet we share our reflections with others in the humble confidence of St. Dominic, who even sent novices to speak about what Christ had showed them, knowing that Christ’s strength is most evident in the weakest vessels.
Our predecessors founded Dominicana as a student-run journal in 1916, which continued until 1968. In 2010 the student brothers decided to re-form the journal, and the first new edition in over forty years appeared last Spring. The print journal now publishes twice a year, in December and May. Subscriptions and access to feature articles of the current edition are available on this site, with back issues coming soon.
In addition, today we begin a new initiative – a daily blog featuring short articles on matters of timely and timeless relevance, from science to Scripture, literature to liturgy, politics to prayer, or anything in between. The whiteness of sunlight seems like a mere absence of color until a stray beam catches a prism, allowing us to see how abundantly full of color it really is. Likewise, the world can seem dreadfully devoid of God until He reveals Himself to us in the prism of contemplation. With this blog, we aim to share with our readers the kaleidoscopic vision of God we have seen in the world and in our cells.
We hope the result is, as P.G. Wodehouse would say, something fresh.
Image: Vincent Van Gogh, Mulberry Tree in Autumn
