Readings

August 8: Dominic, Priest and Friar, 1221

The Collect of the Day

Dominic

Almighty God, grant unto your people a hunger for your Word and an urgent longing to share your Gospel; that, like your servant Dominic, we might labor to bring the whole world to the knowledge and love of you as you are revealed in your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Dominic

Almighty God, grant unto thy people a hunger for thy Word and an urgent longing to share thy Gospel; that, like thy servant Dominic, we might labor to bring the whole world to the knowledge and love of thee as thou art revealed in thy Son Jesus Christ; who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

Dominic was the founder of the Order of Preachers, commonly known as Dominicans. He was born around 1170 in Spain. Influenced by the contemporary search for a life of apostolic poverty, Dominic is reputed to have sold all his possessions to help the poor during a famine in 1191. Ordained in 1196, he soon became a canon and then sub-prior of the Cathedral of Osma, where a rule of strict discipline was established among the canons.

In 1203 he began a number of preaching tours in Languedoc, a region in Southern France, against the Cathars, who believed in a dualist version of Christianity that denigrated the physical world and the human body. In 1214, his plan to found a special preaching order for the conversion of the Cathars began to take shape, and in the following year, he took his followers to Toulouse. At the Fourth Lateran Council in October of 1215, Dominic sought confirmation of his order from Pope Innocent III. This was granted by Innocent’s successor, Honorius III, in 1216 and 1217.

Over the next few years, Dominic traveled extensively, establishing friaries, organizing the order, and preaching, until his death on August 6th, 1221. He is remembered as a man of austere poverty and heroic sanctity, always zealous to win souls by the preaching of pure doctrine.

The Dominican Constitutions, first formulated in 1216 and revised and codified by the Master-General of the Order, Raymond of Peñafort, in 1241, place a strong emphasis on learning, preaching, and teaching, and, partly through the influence of Francis of Assisi, on absolute poverty. The continuing Dominican apostolate embraces intellectual work and the arts of preaching, their major houses usually situated in university centers. Their Constitutions expressthe priority in this way: “In the cells, moreover, they can write, read, pray, sleep, and even stay awake at night, if they desire, on account of study.”

Lessons and Psalm

First Lesson

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Psalm

1Sing to the Lord a new song; *sing to the Lord, all the whole earth.

2Sing to the Lord and bless his Name; *proclaim the good news of his salvation from day to day.

3Declare his glory among the nations *and his wonders among all peoples.

4For great is the Lord and greatly to be praised; *he is more to be feared than all gods.

5As for all the gods of the nations, they are but idols; *but it is the Lord who made the heavens.

6Oh, the majesty and magnificence of his presence! *Oh, the power and the splendor of his sanctuary!

7Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples; *ascribe to the Lord honor and power.

Gospel

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Ecclesiastes 12:1–7

1 Remember your creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come, and the years draw near when you will say, “I have no pleasure in them”; 2 before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars are darkened and the clouds return with the rain; 3 in the day when the guards of the house tremble, and the strong men are bent, and the women who grind cease working because they are few, and those who look through the windows see dimly; 4 when the doors on the street are shut, and the sound of the grinding is low, and one rises up at the sound of a bird, and all the daughters of song are brought low; 5 when one is afraid of heights, and terrors are in the road; the almond tree blossoms, the grasshopper drags itself along and desire fails; because all must go to their eternal home, and the mourners will go about the streets; 6 before the silver cord is snapped, and the golden bowl is broken, and the pitcher is broken at the fountain, and the wheel broken at the cistern, 7 and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the breath returns to God who gave it.

John 7:16–18

16 Then Jesus answered them, “My teaching is not mine but his who sent me. 17 Anyone who resolves to do the will of God will know whether the teaching is from God or whether I am speaking on my own. 18 Those who speak on their own seek their own glory; but the one who seeks the glory of him who sent him is true, and there is nothing false in him.