Manny’s Reviews > In the Image of Saint Dominic: Nine Portraits of Domincan Life > Status Update

St. Dominic: “As the Letter to the Romans puts it, ‘If the root is holy, so are the branches.’ St. Dominic is the ‘Patriarch’ of whom Gregory IX spoke in the bull of canonization…After eight centuries of Dominican life, with its glories and trials, we can see how the paternal figure of St. Dominic contains in germ different types of holiness that have been actualized in the course of history.”

Lacodaire: “To the very end, Lacordaire defended the consequences of his “liberal Catholicism,” such as the separation of church and state… On all fronts Lacordaire had championed liberty, with one object deliberately pursued: the reconciliation of the Church and the modern world as it issued from the French Revolution of 1789. He judged this world, and rightly, to be the world of the future.”

St. Martin de Porres: “Thus in little Martin’s blood there flowed two historic destinies, two cultures, that of victorious Catholic Spain and that of the blacks deported to America for manual labor in this immense land to be exploited after the destruction of the Incas. His very skin bore the mark of the unprivileged of this time, but his swarthy face would come to radiate the light of charity.”

Bartolomé de las Casas: “Las Casas was simply expressing … the two convictions underlying the Christian mission. The evangelist must speak with the voice of friendship and persuasion, and the one who hears the word must accept it freely. For … the fight for justice for the Indians is also a fight for their freedom. This freedom belongs by right to every man created in the image of God and ransomed by him.”

Fra Angelico (Blessed John of Fiesole): "His painting never ceases to speak of the Incarnation, manifesting a renewed order in the world that is expressed by light. Finally, it accords an exceptional place to the Virgin Mary, seen as the model of the creature living in perfect friendship with God in the midst of the joys and sufferings that mark salvation history."

St. Catherine of Siena: "After receiving at the age of eighteen the black and white habit of the Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic, "the white symbolizing innocence and the black humility," this mantellata was led to marriage "in faith" with Christ. In a vision known to mysticism...Christ exchanged his heart with his servant Catherine."

St. Thomas Aquinas: "The 'dumb Ox' as his brethren nicknamed him, was notably taciturn and silent, 'eager at study and given to prayer...' All were struck by the humility of this extraordinary mind. Tocco had this to say: 'He was aware that all his knowledge was God's gift; this is why no movement of vainglory could ever darken his soul, knowing as he did that each day he received the light of divine truth.'

Saint Peter of Verona: "We should not forget that Peter of Verona, called Peter Martyr, the first saint of the Order, after its founder, to be canonized, was an Inquisitor. Born of Catharist parents, he entered the Dominican Order in 1221, a few months before the death of St. Dominic, who himself received him in Bologna."

Blessed Jordan of Saxony: “Jordan recalls unceasingly that the center of Dominican life is Jesus Christ, who restores all things in himself, in whom God has restored all things: the abbreviated Word—Verbum abbreviatum—a well-known patristic and medieval theme, but one which takes on a special resonance when used by a Friar Preacher and a “Sister Preacheress.”