Our Holy Father Saint Dominic is a Trinitarian man; he is a Trinitarian man who established a form of life that, if lived faithfully, produces Trinitarian men and women. To be a Trinitarian man or woman is nothing more and nothing less than embracing the common vocation of every Christian: to live in communion with the Most Blessed Trinity in this life by grace, unto grace’s full blossoming into eternal glory. Yet, in addition to the grace given to live out the common Christian vocation, Saint Dominic received a special grace that conformed him to the Trinity as the father and head of a new Order of Preachers. By fidelity to the grace of God, Saint Dominic, in this paternal manner, became a living mirror of God’s intimate life of wisdom and love. 

Saint Dominic’s paternity reflects the personhood of the Eternal Father as the unbegotten source of life who sustains all things by his power, strength, and care. Besides the fact that St. Dominic founded the Order of Preachers, he reflected the divine person of the Father by his care for the brethren. One little known story recounted in the Lives of the Brethren, a work compiled early in the Order’s history, demonstrates this point well. After keeping vigil for seven nights watching St. Dominic, John of Bologna testified, 

He prayed sometimes standing, sometimes kneeling, sometimes prostrate, and kept on until sleep grasped him. When he woke up, he went around visiting the altars. He went on this way until midnight. Then he very quietly visited the sleeping brothers, covering those who were uncovered. After that he went back to the church and continued praying. (Lives of the Brethren of the Order of Preachers, 53)

His care for the Order as its earthly father was all encompassing, from the altar to the brother. As the founder and earthly father of this new order, St. Dominic understood well the need to beseech the Eternal Father in prayer to sustain, protect, and bring to completion the good work at hand. This care for all under his domain reflects what Christ tells us about the Father. The same caring Father who counts every hair on the heads of his sons and daughters, is also the “Father of lights” (Jas 1:17) who “clothes the grass of the field” (Matt 6:30). 

The Eternal Father is the Father because he eternally generates the Son, the divine fruit of His eternal and complete knowledge of himself. The Son is the Eternal Word and Light of the Father, Wisdom in Person. It is this divine person, this Eternal Word, this Light, this Wisdom who assumed a human nature, that through his life, death, resurrection, and ascension the world might know “the only true God and Jesus Christ whom he has sent” (John 17:3). It is this same Word of God who called Dominic of Guzman to give himself entirely to the message of salvation. Through prayer, study of the Word, and preaching, Dominic became the light of the Church, freely pouring out the waters of wisdom that “by all means he might save some” (1 Cor 9:22). Finally, the Son makes known the name of the Father so that the love with which the Son is loved by the Father might be in us and, consequently, all three divine persons might dwell in us. 

The Father knows the Son perfectly as the Son knows the Father perfectly. This perfect knowledge produces a perfect love, divine Love in Person—also known as the Holy Spirit. Saint Dominic’s most famous quality was his charity, that participation in the Love who is the Holy Spirit. Blessed Jordan of Saxony, second Master of the Order, writes, “Everybody was enfolded in the wide embrace of Dominic’s charity, and since he loved everyone, everyone loved him . . . he was full of affection and gave himself utterly to caring for his neighbors and to showing sympathy for the unfortunate.”

Saint Dominic was a Trinitarian man, a living mirror of the divine communion of persons. He was the father of a new Order of Preachers, a light of the Church reflecting the Divine Son, and vessel of God’s goodness and love.

✠

Photo by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P. (used with permission)