Dominican Contemplatives

Abstract

The perfection of the Christian life consists essentially in Charity; principally in the love of God, secondarily in the love of our neighbour. (Sum: Theol: II-II, 184, 3). The source and exemplar of all Charity is the Uncreated Love which is the very life of the Blessed Trinity, while its plenitude is possessed by the Soul of Christ, of Whose fulness we have all received. Each Religious Order strives in its measure to reproduce some aspect of this “Charity of Christ which surpasseth all knowledge” (Eph. 3, 19), the contemplative life pertaining directly and immediately to the love of God, while the active life is more immediately concerned with the love of our neighbour. (II-II, 182, 2). Yet St Dominic, by founding an Order whose purpose was contemplation ordained to the Apostolate—contemplan, et contemplata aliis tradere, has perhaps come as near as is humanly possible to combining the two lives and the double aspect of Charity, in a single vocation. St Catherine, herself an outstanding example of the realisation of the Dominican ideal, had this brought home to her, when in a vision she saw St Dominic emanating from the heart of the Eternal Father, and resembling even in features the Word Who proceeded from his mouth. The Eternal Father explained to her: “My only Begotten Son devoted all his life to the salvation of souls . . . Dominic, my adopted son . . . taking on himself the office of the Word, directed all his efforts to the salvation of souls . . . That was the chief object that led him to plant and to train his Order. Therefore I tell you that in all his acts he may be compared to my Begotten Son.”