Greetings to all readers of this blog on the feast of our holy father Saint Dominic. Today is a day of great joy and celebration for all the family of Dominic as we honour the founder of the Order of Preachers.
My favourite account of the life of Saint Dominic is Saint Dominic and His Times by Marie Humbert Vicaire OP (Darton, Longman & Todd, London, 1964). Towards the end of this scholarly work, Vicare tries to sum up Dominic's life and mentions the many great qualities of the man - administrator, joyful friar, spiritual father, confessor and so on. But it is the following quotation on Dominic the preacher that means much to me:
Undeniably, he was born to be a Preacher. He had the temprament for it. Simple, without inhibitions, generous, heroic, he naturally gave the best of himself. Moreover, he had that liveliness of imagination that enabled him to see without difficulty the magnitude of what he was describing, whether deserving of praise or blame, and to give his words a spontaneous lyricism, a dramatic influence which made him a great orator. If he made his hearers weep, it was because he was also deeply moved, because he was convinced, and because he was speaking of that to which he had given his life. Then again it was because he loved the [men] to whom he was preaching.
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