Idaho Lay Dominicans
Blessed Margaret of Castello Chapter
†
I. Pillar of Study
Study is a way of life for the Lay Dominican; inseparable from prayer and the apostolate, the three fuse in mutual support. Ideally, study, prayer, and apostolate merge to form a whole new way of living and experiencing of you are and who God is in your life. By applying our “minds” to reality we seek truth and dispose ourselves to receive it humbly and charitably. And by applying our “hearts” to this known truth, we seek not just to live it but to become it. Truth becomes incarnate in our lives as we share in the divine life of Jesus Christ. But this rests on study. Learning comes before everything else, including holiness and experience. It is impossible to fulfill the contemplative and apostolic ends of the Dominican Oder without study.
Read: The Pillar of Study (Anderson) Click Here.
II. “St. Dominic Nourished in the ‘Sacred Page.’” Read only that portion of the following article, click here. It is entitled “St. Dominic Nourished in the ‘Sacred Page.’” [“Module No. 1” (Three pages)].
III. Study and the Lay Dominican. Click, here.
IV. See the following video with regard to the Pillar of Study by the Vicar of the Master General for the Dominican Order, put together for the 2010 General Chapter of the Order in Rome:
http://irishdominicanvocations.blogspot.com/2010/07/general-chapter-of-dominican-order-rome.html
V. Fausto Appetente Die
Benedict XV gives light to St. Dominic’s life and his life of study and prayer, and by way of example, to the Lay Dominican as well. You can read it by clicking here. Here are samples.
“…[I]n addition to the duty of cultivating poverty, innocence of life, and religious discipline, he commanded his Order in a strict and solemn manner to be zealous in the study of Christian doctrine and the preaching of the truth.
“In the Dominican preaching three qualities shine forth: great solidity of doctrine, the fullness of fidelity towards the Apostolic See, piety towards the Virgin Mother.
… “[T]he Dominican institute from the beginning was famed for its learning. Its special mission was always to care for the various wounds of error and to diffuse the light of the Christian Faith, seeing that nothing is such a hindrance to eternal salvation was the ignorance of the truth and perversity of doctrine.
“History tells, too, how when he was training his first followers to Christian perfection, Dominic thought of gathering from pious and devout lay people a certain sacred militia which would defend the rights of the Church and res heresy with vigor. Hence arose the Third Order of the Dominicans which, spreading among lay people the institute of a more perfect life, was to be a truly great ornament and defense to the Church.”
Return to Main Formation Page
Home
