St. Dominic and the Foundation of the Order

Dominic de Guzman was born in Caleruega, Spain around 1170 to Felix de Guzman and Blessed Jane of Aza. When Blessed Jane was pregnant with Saint Dominic she dreamed that she gave birth to a dog that went about with a torch in its mouth setting the world ablaze. This was an accurate prefiguration of the man who founded the Order of Preachers and did indeed set the world ablaze with his zeal for the Truth.

Despite the fact that his two older brothers were studying to be priests and that, consequently, Dominic would have ordinarily been slated for another vocational trajectory, Bl. Jane insisted that Dominic’s education be on a priestly track. He was put under the special guidance of his uncle who was a priest and so from a young age he was steeped in an ecclesial life. He was sent to the University of Palencia to pursue higher studies and immersed himself in the study of Sacred Scripture. He became famous for his outstanding character and kindness and caught the attention of Bishop Diego, who, after Dominic was ordained, made him a canon in the Church of Osma. As a canon, Dominic lived under the Rule of Saint Augustine in a semi-monastic setting, which he found very pleasing as it catered to his desire for solitude and contemplation while still allowing him to preach the Gospel. His holiness was quickly noted and he was made prior at a young age.

In 1203, however, Dominic left the peace of the cloister to accompany Bishop Diego on a diplomatic mission to Denmark. En route to Denmark, Dominic and Diego encountered the Albigensian heresy, which had taken hold of southern France. After completing their mission, Dominic and Diego returned to France and together with a small band of Cistercians who had been commissioned by the Pope, preached against the Albigensian heresy. They won many converts through their zealous preaching and witness of voluntary poverty. After several years, Bishop Diego and the Cistercians returned home, but Dominic remained and gained followers who also wished to preach the Truth of the Gospel in mendicancy.

Among those converted by Dominic’s preaching were women who, because of their conversion, were alienated from their families and, in some cases, threatened by angry heretics. In 1206, in order to give these women a safe environment to live the life of prayer and penance they desired, Dominic established them together in a common life at Prouille. This was to be the first monastery of the Order. When laying out a pattern of life for this new community, Dominic used the Cistercian monastic tradition as his starting point and added to it according his own vision for nuns living prayer and penance at the heart of an Order of Preachers. The monastery in Prouille served as a refuge for Dominic and his growing band of followers. The Order of Preachers, commonly called the Dominicans, was officially established in 1216. In 1217 Dominic dispersed the brethren throughout Europe and even today, 800 years later, the children of Dominic continue to carry the torch throughout the world. Dominic died in 1221 shortly after the conclusion of the Second General Chapter of the Order. He was canonized in 1234 and his feast day is celebrated on August 8.

Medieval Roots

The Dominican Order was founded in the thirteenth century and holds to what is best in the medieval worldview. This worldview is an all-encompassing, God-centered perspective on reality. It sees that God the Creator is sovereign over all areas of human life and that he is guiding history toward a completion not of this world. It recognizes that the center of human history is the Incarnation, the coming into this world of the Son of God born of the Virgin Mary. Indeed, an awareness of Mary’s presence permeates the medieval worldview as does the presence of the angels, saints, and even the demons. The medieval mindset is open to the supernatural because it understands that the human person, made in God’s image, spans the material and spiritual worlds: Men and women hold a unique place in the hierarchically structured universe and are tasked with the worship of God. The human person is embedded in the social units of family, village, and parish, but also in a divine providence that is both cosmic and particular. Living this reality daily gave the men and women of the medieval centuries an acute awareness that the actions of this life have consequences in the next.

Women called to contemplative life in the Dominican Order today experience a new way of living consonant with this medieval heritage. Our life is theocentric, Christological, Marian, and penitential. It is also profoundly incarnational: Whereas modern definitions of the human person tend to materialism or radical dualism, the Dominican tradition considers the human person to be an en-souled body (that is, a body-soul composite). This means that the body's outer life is profoundly intertwined with the soul's inner life. What we do with our bodies—how we nourish, carry, and clothe them, for example—is anchored to the life of the soul and its final destiny.

This truth about the human person shapes the life of Dominican nuns. Our God-given human nature has one goal—union with the Blessed Trinity in the Beatific Vision enjoyed in company with the Mother of God, angels, and saints. Although we cannot arrive at this goal on our own, grace moves us toward perfection even in this life through growth in virtue and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit. Sin, of course, can keep us from loving union with God; that's why sacrifice and penance—yes, even bodily penance—are an integral part of every Christian life. Nuns are examples of, not exceptions to, that fact. But the life that Dominican nuns live in common and the liturgy we pray together—also in the body—are equally important anticipations for the Church of the life of heaven to come.

The Dominican nun lives in the presence of ultimate realities. In this, she is not so much an innovator as an heir to a great tradition, one that flourished in many ways in the medieval centuries. What is on offer to her is a way of life separated from the skepticism and nihilism of modernity. Her graced response, her embodiment of the tradition in her own person, bears fruit as the tradition is handed on from one generation to the next.

Marian Spirituality

The Dominican Order has enjoyed the special patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary from its very inception. As Humbert Clerissac phrased it: “Our Order claims for itself, not only the maternal patronage of the Blessed Virgin, but also the privilege of being the child of her prayers.”

The Monastery of Our Lady of Grace participates in a unique way in this holy patronage. In the late 19th century, a French Dominican, Father Damien Marie Saintourens, had the inspiration to found convents of Dominicans nuns who would pray the Holy Rosary continuously. In 1876, he received confirmation for this mission in the grotto in Lourdes after keeping vigil through the night. What resulted was the Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary which began in Calais, France and eventually spread to the United States. This is a part of the beautiful history and lineage which buttresses our monastery’s love for Our Blessed Mother.

The Church’s understanding of and teaching about Mary has continued to develop with the passing of the years and received a new impetus under the teaching pontificate of Saint John Paul II. There has been a renewal and a deepening penetration of what is unique to her as the Mother of God but also of the ways in which her very person gives form to the whole Church and most especially to consecrated women. So, just as Mary’s presence permeated the medieval world and the first convents of the Sisters of the Perpetual Rosary so, too, does it permeate a 21st century community of Dominican nuns.

A woman begins her life in our monastery as a postulant with a brief ceremony in which the prioress recites a prayer of consecration to Our Lady. Soon she discovers that just as the halls of our cloister walks are lined with various images of the Blessed Mother, the daily life embraced in our monastery is lined with expressions of filial devotion and recourse to her who is Jesus’ mother and ours. By way of example, the communal recitation of the Angelus three times a day, and the Rosary prayed together every evening, assist in our desire to dwell within Mary’s embrace and learn from her how to contemplate and participate in the mysteries of her Divine Son. We also end the day under her protection with the chanting of the antiphon Salve Regina. This antiphon is also sung as a sister is passing from the night of this world, so that once again entrusted to the loving solicitude of Mary, Our Lady of Grace and the Gate of Heaven, she may enter into glory.

Our Lady of Grace is truly Mary’s house. Our profession formula includes a profession of obedience to Mary and filial devotion to her is cultivated throughout one’s life as one progresses in the theological life of grace, the virtues and the Gifts of the Holy Spirit so perfectly exemplified in the Blessed Mother.

“As has always been the custom in the Order, the nuns should love and reverence the Blessed Mary, Mother of Mercy, Queen of Apostles and Virgins, and a model of meditation on the words of Christ and docility in their own mission. They should hold the rosary in special honor, since this venerable form of prayer leads to contemplation of the mysteries of salvation in which the Virgin is intimately joined to the work of her Son.” (LCM)

Common Life

The common life is the foundation—and the first of all Dominican observances—as it refers principally to our communion with the Persons of the Blessed Trinity and is the source of our sisterly communion. The Rule of Saint Augustine, inspired by this text, states: “The main purpose for your having come together is to live harmoniously in your house, intent upon God in oneness of mind and heart.” The form of life presented in the Rule, profoundly shaped by Saint Augustine’s Trinitarian theology, is intended to image the Divine communion.

This is the Rule which Saint Dominic adopted for the entire Order of Preachers, and the nuns are heirs of this apostolic ideal. As such, the Constitutions states, “As the Rule reminds us, the first reason for which we are gathered together in community is to live in harmony, having one mind and heart in God. This unity transcends the limits of the monastery and attains its fullness in communion with the Order and whole Church of Christ.” (LCM 2) However, this life of communion and our participation in Christ’s Passion are inseparable. We are only knit into this Trinitarian communion through our obedient embrace of the mystery of the Cross—in all the circumstances of our daily life. Through our life together, we are confronted with the mystery of suffering, sin, and death—and must have constant recourse to Christ Crucified who reconciled all things in his Blood. This union with the redemptive mysteries draws us into the dynamic of adoptive filiation, and leads us back to the Father in the Spirit to dwell at the heart of the Trinity. For this reason, the common life has a rich contemplative significance for the Dominican nun.

Practically, the common life is maintained and manifested by holding all things in common and calling nothing our own, by various forms of recreation, by opportunities for discussion of doctrinal and spiritual matters, through our manner of government which involves the participation of all in the ordering of the life of the monastery, and by our caring for our infirm and elderly nuns who are being configured to Christ crucified and supporting them with our prayers when death draws near. The bonds we share are supernatural, and so transcend the boundaries of space and time and extend to those of the family of Saint Dominic who have gone before us and have left us an example by their way of fellowship in their communion and aid by their intercession. Prayers for new vocations as well as frequent prayers for the dead are part of our common life and expand our sharing in the communio sanctorum.

“The unanimity of our life, rooted in the love of God, should furnish a living example of that reconciliation of all things in Christ which our brethren proclaim in their preaching of the word. Like the Church of the apostles, our communion is founded, built up and made firm in the one Spirit. It is in the Spirit that we receive the Word from God the Father with one faith, contemplate him with one heart, and praise him with one voice. In him we are made one body, share in the one bread, and finally hold all things in common. The nuns first build in their own monasteries the Church of God which they help to spread throughout the world by the offering of themselves. They accomplish this by being of one mind through obedience, bound together by love of things that are above (cf. Col. 3:1) through the discipline of chastity, and more closely dependent upon one another through poverty. In order that each monastery be a center of true communion, let all accept and cherish one another as members of the same body, differing in native qualities and functions but equal in the common bond of charity and profession.” (LCM)

Dominican Government

The governmental structure of the Order—and the structures which it imparts to each priory of friars and monastery of nuns—was crafted by Saint Dominic and the early brethren in view of its fraternal communion and its mission of preaching for the salvation of souls. Though there have been developments throughout the centuries, Saint Dominic’s founding vision for the Order’s government has endured. The Fundamental Constitution of the Order describes it as, “communitarian in a special way.”

Practically, this means that the Order has a universal head, namely the general chapter and the Master of the Order. The provinces throughout the world, while under obedience to the Master of the Order, still retain their autonomy. Governance on the level of the provinces and priories is exercised through chapters and through councils. Likewise, each monastery of nuns is autonomous, and is self-governing through its chapter and council.