This section will contain some information about various Dominican Saints according to the Dominican Calendar.

Saint Catherine of Siena OP

/in /by

St Catherine of Siena OP

Feast Day: 29th April

Saint Catherine was born in Siena in 1347, being the youngest of 25 children. She lived in a time disrupted by political turmoil, wars, the plague and schism in the Church. It was a difficult time and many people thought the end times were near.

However, it was exactly in this difficult time that God gave one of the greatest lights to the Church, a light shining brightly in the darkness. God touched Catherine’s heart at the early age of six when she had a remarkable experience which may be said to have determined her vocation. She had a vision of Christ seated in glory with the Apostles Peter, Paul, and John. A short time later the little girl made a secret vow to give her whole life to God.

Read more

Saint Catherine de’ Ricci OP

/in /by

St Catherine de’ Ricci OP

Feast Day: 4th February

Alexandra de’ Ricci was born of a noble family near Florence in 1522. At the age of twelve she entered the Dominican convent of St Vincent at Prato and took the religious name Catherine. Inspired by the Dominican reformer Girolamo Savonarola she worked constantly to promote the regular life. She was favoured with extraordinary mystical experiences and at the age of twenty began to experience the sacred stigmata and weekly ecstasies of the Passion. These phenomena continued for twenty years. Despite her intense mystical life of prayer and her penance, Catherine served as prioress of the convent for thirty-six years. She was noted as a kind and considerate superior, particularly gentle with the sick. She died on February 2, 1590 (from the Dominican Supplement for the Liturgy of the Hours).

Read more

Stranger in the Kingdom

/in /by

St Ignatius Delgado and Companions (November 24)

 

“This stranger, who was introduced clandestinely into the kingdom, spends his life in the study of things of the heart and in the meditation on what is incomprehensible…” (From the death sentence of Bishop Ignatius Delgado).

St Ignatius Delgado

St Ignatius Delgado

This group of 117 martyrs, of which Bishop Delgado OP was part, suffered and shed their blood out of love for Christ in the region known today as Vietnam. Of this group, 59 were associated to the Dominican Order.

There is little known of the life of these martyrs before they were captured. Bishop Delgado died together with bishop Dominic Henares OP and a catechist. Both bishops were from Spain and bishop Delgado was born in 1762. From the sentence of condemnation itself we learn that Bishop Delgado had laboured for nearly fifty years in Tonkin, which argues that he must have been a resourceful man as well as a zealous one, before he died at the age of seventy-six. Read more

Hunter for Truth!

/in /by

St Albert the Great (November 15)

On August 4, 1221, St Dominic, the founder of the Order of Preachers, died. He was succeeded as Master of the Order by a man in his 30s, passionately enthusiastic about Dominic’s mission of preaching and teaching: Jordan of Saxony. Under Jordan, the Order grew rapidly, thanks to his unsurpassed ability to set the hearts of young people aflame with a desire to share in St Dominic’s mission. Wherever he went, especially universities, he would bring a bale of cloth with him to make new habits for the men who wanted to take vows as friars preachers! In 1223, in Padua, a small, stocky young Bavarian became the latest to fall under Jordan’s spell. The only thing that distinguished him at the time was a keen interest in falconry, but he was to become one of the foundational figures of modern science, and a great theologian too. His name was Albert.

Read more

Saint Louis Bertrand OP

/in /by

Saint Louis BertrandFeast day: 9th of October

Friar and Priest, Memorial
Saint Louis was born in Valencia, Spain, on January 1, 1526, and in 1544 entered the Order against the wishes of his parents. He came to so exemplify the ideals of Dominican life that he was appointed master of novices. Combining an austere life with zeal for spreading the gospel, he asked to be sent to the farthest parts of the Americas and in 1562 was sent to what is now Colombia. He was given the gift of communicating with the Indians in their own tongues and with the encouragement of Bartolomeo de Las Casas defended their rights against the Spanish conquerors. He returned to Spain in 1569 and again assumed the position of master of novices. He died at Valencia on October 9, 1591. Saint Louis is the patron of novitiates and formation personnel.

Read more

Our Lady of the Rosary

/in /by

Lavinia Fontana of the Blessed Mother giving the rosary to St. DominicFeast day: 7th of October

Feast
From its beginning the Order of Preachers has shown special honor and devotion to Mary, Mother of God. The Rosary, which places before us the chief mysteries of the life, passion and resurrection of our Savior, has been one of the chief ways in which the Order has expressed this devotion. Our brother, Alan de La Roche (1428-1478) helped to define the structure of the Rosary and zealously promoted its recitation. At Douai in 1470 he established the first Rosary Confraternity. In 1476 our brother Jacob Sprenger established at Cologne the first such Confraternity which had papal approval. Pope Saint Pius V gave the Rosary definitive form in is bull Consueverunt Romani Pontifcis (September 17, 1569).
Today’s feast commemorates the great naval victory won by Christian forces over the Turks at Lepanto on Sunday, October 7, 1571. Pope Saint Pius V decreed that a feast in honor of Our Lady of Victories be celebrated each year on that day. His successor, Gregory XIII, transferred the feast to the first Sunday of October under the new title of the Most Holy Rosary, since it was precisely through the invocation of Our Lady of the Rosary that the victory was thought to have been gained. In the reform of the liturgy the feast was returned to its original day.

Read more

Blessed Raymond of Capua OP

/in /by

Blessed Raymond of Capua OPFeast day: 5th of October

Friar, Priest and Master of the Dominican Order, Optional Memorial

Raymond delle Vigne was born at Capua, Italy, about 1330 and while studying at the University of Bologna entered the Order there in 1350. After holding various administrative and teaching positions in the Roman Province he was assigned to be spiritual director for Saint Catherine of Siena, whose friend, confidant, biographer, guide and disciple he became. In May, 1380, Raymond was elected Master of that portion of the Order which had remained faithful to the Roman Pontiff, Urban VI. He vigorously promoted reform within the Order while at the sane time working to restore unity to the Church, rent asunder as it was by the Western Schism.  He died at Nurenberg on October 5, 1399 while visitating the German priories.

Read more

Saint Dominic Ibanez de Erquicia and companions

/in /by

Feast day: 28th of September

Martyrs, Memorial

Saint Dominic Ibanez de Erquicia and Saint James Kyushei Tomonaga, Priests, Saint Lawrence Ruiz, Lay Dominican and Husband and Companions.
On this day the Order commemorates sixteen martyrs who labored to establish the Church in Nagaski, Japan, and who were martyred at various times during the years 1633, 1634 and 1637. After enduring horrible tortures, they were executed by the method known as the “gallows and pit,” their bodies were burned, and their ashes scattered.
Of this group nine were from Japan, four from Spain, one from France, one from Italy, and one from the Philippines. Father Dominic Ibanez de Erquicia was the first to die on August 14, 1633. Lawrence Ruiz, the father of a family and the protomartyr of the Philippines, died on September 29, 1637. Thirteen of these martyrs were members of the Dominican Family and three were associated with it.

Read more

Saint Juan Macias OP

/in /by

Saint Juan MaciasFeast day: 18th of September

Friar and Religious, Memorial

Juan Macias was born at Ribera in Estramadura, Spain, in 1595 of a noble but impoverished family. Orphaned in early childhood, .Juan worked as a shepherd for his relatives, an occupation which provided him time for prayer. Inspired by a vision he left his native country and set sail for the Americas, arriving finally in Lima, Peru, where. for a time he tended the sheep of a wealthy Spaniard. In 1623 he decided to enter the Order at the priory of Saint Mary Magdalene in Lima, where he served as porter for twenty-two years. Like his friend Saint Martin de Porres, he was known for his love and care for the poor and for his special devotion to the Rosary. He died on September 16, 1645.

Read more

Saint Rose of Lima

/in /by

Saint Rose of Lima OPFeast day: 23rd of August

Lay Dominican and Virgin Memorial

Isabella Flores, commonly known as Rose, was born in Lima, Peru, in 1586, and became the first canonized saint of the Western Hemisphere. She made a vow of virginity at an early age and only with great difficulty overcame the objections and misunderstanding of her family to her way of life. At the age of twenty she became a Dominican Tertiary and lived in a hermitage which she had set up in her family’s garden. She practiced severe penances for the salvation of sinners and for the missionary efforts of the Church in the Indies. Her great love for Christ manifested itself by her care of and concern for the poor and sick. She had a special devotion to Christ in the Eucharist and to Mary, the Mother of God. Her desire to teach others the secret of prayer made her a zealous promoter of the Rosary. She died at Lima on August 24, 1617.

Read more