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Posted by on Aug 8, 2008

Saint of the Day – St. Dominic – August 8

Saint of the Day – St. Dominic – August 8

For the feast of St. Dominic, I asked several Dominicans what they would like people to know about the founder of their order, the Order of Preachers. These were responses I received in the order received.

From Timothy Radcliffe, OP, Blackfriars, Oxford: 

I would say that one of the things that struck people about St Dominic was his joy. One has the impression that he delighted in talking to people, whoever they were. He had an immediate empathy with people, with their sorrows and joys. It was said that he laughed during the day with his brethren, and wept at night with God. This joy is the beginning of all preaching. The early Dominicans all compared the gospel to new wine, which makes you drunk!

From Thomas McDermott, OP, Kenrick-Glennon Seminary, St. Louis, Missouri

Here’s something that you might be able to use:

“Two distinctive features of Dominican spirituality are study and preaching.  St. Dominic situated his religious communities not in the countryside, as in the case of monks, but in the center of university cities.  Manual labor was replaced by study and the friars could be dispensed from attending parts of the Liturgy of the Hours for purposes of study.  What were they to study?  Truth–sacred truth.  The motto of the Order is Veritas.  Study was to inform the contemplative life of the Dominican friar and preaching, in all its forms, was the overflow.  Another motto is, “To preach, and to share with others the fruits of one’s contemplation.”  The official name of Dominican order is the Order of Preachers.  Democracy has always been a hallmark of the Dominicans. Major and local superiors are elected by the friars themselves.  General chapters of the Order take place every three years to respond to current needs and keep the Order’s legislation up to date.”

Here’s a good source for biographies of St. Dominic and other OP saints, http://www.domcentral.org/trad/

From Michael Fones, OP, Co-director, Catherine of Siena Institute

I would want people to know that he was in such love with God that it was said of him that “he was always either talking to God or talking about God.”  I say this is a sign of his great love of God because we naturally want to be in conversation with our beloved, and he or she is always so much on our mind that we inevitably talk to others about them.

 From Sr. Barbara Long, OP, Holy Cross Parish, Santa Cruz

St. Dominic’s ministry is as contemporary today as it was in the 13th century. Dominic realized that we need to meet people where they are at. He didn’t wait for people to come to him, but encountered them in the every day activities of their lives and shared the Gospel message.

My thanks to these and other dedicated brothers and sisters of St. Dominic for sharing your gifts and insights.

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Posted by on Oct 2, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Dominic – August 8

Guardian Angels –

October 2 is the feast of the Guardian Angels. Spirit messengers and agents of the Divine are found in many world religions that predate Christianity. Angels are also a big part of New Age spirituality.

Spirithome.com’s article on Why Angels? does a good job of reviewing traditional Christian views of angels and their place in the lives of Christians. (The site is an excellent information and inspiration resource. Be sure to check it out.)

If you want to review the traditional Catholic teaching on angels, take a look at Catholic Online. It can be a little technical but is also an excellent example of a highly rational post-Enlightenment type of theology.

Angels-Online is a site devoted to contemporary stories about people’s experiences of Angels. Some stories are better than others. However, they attest to the current fascination with Angels as a sign of God’s providence or as benevolent spirits in a world of “spirituality” without religion.

The persistence of Angels in people who adhere to religion or who embrace its early earth related forms is a sign of something deeper. People perceive activity in a realm beyond immediate physical reality. If we take a closer look at non-industrialized “primitive” people, as studied by anthropologists, we see that most everything in everyday life is explained in terms of spirits. This notion that the spiritual realm is the true realm is widespread throughout world religions, including Christianity.

The belief in Guardian Angels is a belief in God’s individual care and concern for all of us. For all of us post-moderns stuck in the here and now, Angels offer us a reminder. Angels fly because they take themselves lightly.

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Posted by on Sep 24, 2007

Saint of the Day – St. Dominic – August 8

Spiritual Machines?

Ray Kurzweil’s 2005 The Singularity is Near: When Humans Transcend Biology is an update of his 1999 book, The Age of Spiritual Machines.

Kurzweil has excellent credentials in information technology. He invented the first flat bed scanner, initiated speech and voice recognition technologies, pioneered music synthesizers. Kurzweil was the first to develop technology that could read text and speak it out loud.

Based on this record of achievement and innovation on matters relating to artificial intelligence, Kurzweil estimates that we are approaching a point at which machine intelligence will surpass human intelligence. The point of intelligence surpassing human biology is called the singularity. The point from which everything begins.

Contemporary physics, as elaborated by Stephen Hawking in his updated A Briefer History of Time, refers to the emergence of the universe from an initial singularity.

Kurzweil uses the singularity concept to describe a tipping at which machines surpass human intelligence. It also implies that when the intelligence of machines surpasses (or even approaches) human intelligence, a sense of self – an experience of soul – will occur in these mechanical systems.

Basically, intelligence and the sense of self is reduced to a critical mass of neurons firing, whether they are carbon based neurons in humans or silicon based neurons in machines. The next assumption is that spirituality derives from this sense of self awareness.

Physician and scientist, Antonio Damasio in his book, Descartes’ Error: Emotion Reason and the Human Brain (1994), presents the case that our perception and intelligence is linked – literally – with our nervous system’s extension outside the skull and throughout the body. According to Damasio, it is not possible have a functioning nervous system floating in a medium separate and apart from the human body.

Since our body influences and literally shapes our sense of self awareness and identity, what will happen to silicon based intelligence developing without an analagous body is not clear. Even carbon based “organic” computer systems floating in a liquid medium would not have the human sense of body.

The other issue is that the sheer volume of firing neurons does not necessarily create consciousness in humans. If we reduce consciousness, self identity, and soul to the direct or indirect product of physical functions, how can there be a spirit on which to have a spirituality? By definition, the spirit cannot be reduced to the physical.

If we reduce the soul to the product of physics and chemistry, isn’t our sense of spirit and spirituality merely a cognitive error of some type? If there is no objective or actual realm that transcends the physical, won’t machines in their cognitive excellence avoid this delusion?

Stay tuned for a post on Bernard Lonergan, S.J. author of Insight: A Study of Human Understanding.

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Posted by on Sep 22, 2007

Saint Thomas of Villanova: Almsgiver, Father of the Poor, and Model of Bishops

Saint Thomas of Villanova was born to a family of modest means in Fuentellana, Spain in 1488. His father was a miller and his parents were known for their generosity to the poor.

Thomas was educated as a child and at sixteen entered the University of Alcalá. While there, he earned advanced degrees in Theology. By 1514, he received the chair of arts, logic and philosophy. He was offered the chair of natural philosophy at the University of Salamanca, one of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Europe, but declined it in order to enter the Augustinian order in 1516. He was ordained a priest in 1518. His new duties included teaching scholastic theology at the Salamanca Convent of his order. As the years passed, his duties expanded to include preaching in many areas of Spain. Eventually he was named to the position of court preacher to Emperor Charles V (Charles I of Spain).

Thomas held many positions of responsibility among the Augustinians, including the position of provincial-prior in Andalusia and Castile. During those years, he sent the first Augustinian missionaries to Mexico (1533). In 1544, he was nominated to serve as Archbishop of Valencia, a post that had been open for nearly one hundred years. He had declined the position of Bishop of Granada previously, but this time he accepted the position as a matter of obedience to his superiors.

Thomas of Villanova was the thirty-second bishop and eighth archbishop of Valencia. He served in this role for eleven years. During his time as archbishop, he began a series of reforms and initiatives in service of the poor, for which he received the titles of “Almsgiver,” “Father of the Poor,” and “Model of Bishops” from Pope Paul V at his beatification in 1618. The reforms included abolition of excessive privileges and unreasonable exemptions for the clergy, visits to parishes in the archdiocese, and abolition of underground prisons. He set up institutions to serve the poor in practical ways, including rebuilding Valencia’s general hospital that had been destroyed by fire, setting up two colleges, including one for the children of the poor, founding a home for orphans and children whose parents could not support them, and having Mass offered early in the morning, so working-class people could attend before going to their jobs.

The palace in which Thomas lived as archbishop was always open to the poor. Anyone who came for help received it, with hundreds of people receiving meals through the years. In every city, he appointed people to seek out those “respectable” people who were in need but hesitated or did not think to ask for help. To these he provided clothing, food, or money to help them get back on their feet. To workmen, farmers, and mechanics, he provided tools, seeds, livestock and other items they needed to be able to earn their livings again.

Thomas himself lived simply, mending his own clothing and repairing things as needed. He spent much time in prayer and study. He was known for his supernatural gifts, including healing the sick, resolving conflicts, and bringing people closer to God. He was a mystic and his writings and sermons include practical rules and reflections regarding mystic theology.

Despite his education and commitment to reform in the Church, Thomas did not participated in the Council of Trent (1545-1563). Many reasons have been given for his absence, including illness, the difficulty of travel, and the press of his duties to his people and as advisor to the emperor.

Thomas of Villanova died of angina pectoris at the age of 67, at the end of his daily Mass. He was buried in the cathedral of Valencia. Pope Alexander VII canonized him on November 1, 1658.

Descriptions of the life and works of Thomas of Villanova, while impressive, may not have as dramatic a ring of heroic sanctity today as they did in his day. Bishops who lord it over the people, live lives of conspicuous consumption, and spend most of their time living and acting as princes are not the norm today, as they were in his lifetime. The ideal of bishops has come to be one that more closely resembles the life of Thomas of Villanova. The title, “Model of Bishops,” was well bestowed. The example he gave has borne fruit into our days. When we intercede for our bishops, we would do well to ask his intercession for them too.

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