But it was also a time of corruption in the Church, despite the efforts of great reforming Popes like Innocent III. The new cities, materialistic, more educated and sceptical of spiritual truths were not helped by a clergy which was, by and large, pitifully untrained. Nor were the monasteries able to have much influence since they were largely rural and by definition isolated from the currents of daily life. There was, in the words of the prophet Amos "a famine of the hearing of the word of God", and the vacuum was frequently filled by superstition, heresy and an inordinate love for this world.

Various attempts were made to respond to the situation. Groups of diocesan priests, living in community (the canons) engaged in parochial and theological work. In a number of places, lay preachers attempted to return to the simplicity of the early Church and the gospel-fervour of its early preachers. But most such lay groups quickly fell into doctrinal error and had to be suppressed by the Church.

DOMINIC'S RESPONSE:

It was in such a world that Dominic de Guzman grew up, the son of a Spanish noble; the philosophy student who sold his books to buy food for the starving; and for ten years a canon of the Cathedral at Osma in Spain. Dominic and his bishop, Diego passed through southern France on a journey about 1204, and the journey changed their lives.

The Church was devastated. An heretical movement whose members were variously known as Manichees, Cathari or Albigensians, had propagated a doctrine that included hatred of all material things - even for material sacraments, - which were seen as the products of an evil,, non-spiritual god. Perfect religion was to starve oneself into the release of death. In contrast to worldly Catholic clergy, the leaders of the Cathari were rigid ascetics who held the loyalty of followers of varying degrees of devotion. (These followers were actually allowed to live licentious lives themselves, but were quickly absolved of their sin at the hour of death, by the leaders - the "Perfect").

Dominic and Diego were moved to pity for the state of the Church here, and struck by the failure of past attempts to bring back the lapsed. They realised that this failure had much to do with the inauthenticity of clergy who were weighed down with wealth and pomp.

Dominic saw the need for preachers who would be learned, disciplined and poor. With the approval of the Bishop of Toulouse, Folques ( who had once been a troubadour), Dominic

began to gather a group of men willing to take up mendicancy and the dangers of preaching in hostile territory. They would sing a love song, but not that of the troubadours. They would sing the love of Jesus crucified. They would be given over to liturgical life and prayer, like the monks. They would be given over to active ministry in community, like the canons. But unlike monks or canons, who were bound to the one place, they would move about according to the needs of the Church, and they would preach, something hitherto largely reserved to the Bishops. As he gathered his preachers, Dominic also established a convent of nuns (mostly converts from heresy), whose example and prayer would lend support to the campaign of his preachers.

THE SEED SOWN:

The plan of life of the preachers gained universal approbation in December, 1216. The Friars, up to that time a promising experiment in southern France, were now given wider scope, directly under the protection of the Holy See. And in 1217 Dominic took decisive action to ensure that the work of the Order would range as widely as the need for preachers did. After long prayer, he called his mere sixteen followers together and dispersed them, despite their objections that they were too few, too inexperienced, too poor and without enough leaders and friends. Dominic's reply: "Seed that is hoarded rots. You shall no longer live together in this house." He sent them off, - four to Spain, seven to Paris, two to Prouille and two were to stay on in Toulouse. He and one last brother went off to Rome. The seed was being scattered for harvest.

By 1221, the year of Dominic's death, some 500 friars had spread as far as Hungary, Denmark, and England. By 1222 they had reached the mission fields of Poland, Germany

and Hungary. Soon after, they were preaching the Word in Greece and Palestine. The story of the Preachers had really begun.

THE CHARISM:

What were to be the essentials of the Dominican way of life? How would the Friars live? They would be men of study, bound to the liturgy, to vowed life, to monastic discipline - yet mobile for the purpose of preaching.

Study:

The Dominican is dedicated to Truth, for God is Truth. God has called us into the intimacy of his own Trinitarian life, so that as sons in the Son, we can cry out "Abba, Father!" And we are meant one day to see the glory, the power, the love, beauty and wisdom of God face to face. While we are on pilgrimage, we share in God's own self-knowledge through faith in Him, as He reveals Himself in the Word made Flesh and the Word as preached. The Truth convicts, the Truth redeems, the Truth saves. The Dominican is to live in that Truth, to be converted and sanctified by it, and to preach it. "Happy indeed is the man who follows not the counsel of the wicked, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the company of scoffers, but whose delight is the law of the Lord, and who ponders His law day and night."

To ponder His law day and night; to CONTEMPLATE AND SHARE WITH OTHERS THE FRUIT OF CONTEMPLATION; to lead others into Christ who is Truth - this is the essence of Dominican study.

Dominic himself sent his preachers to hear theological lectures in Toulouse; he insisted that every house make provision for all its preachers to be continually studying the Word. It is no accident that the two books which Dominic carried with him always were the works of the two rabbinic new Testament writers, Paul and Matthew, men with a rabbi's love for God's word, men with a practical eye for organising and strengthening local churches.

Dominican study aims to give the preacher the attitude of St. Paul "Woe to me if I do not preach." Our Constitutions set down: "Our study ought principally look to this: that we may be useful to the souls of our neighbours." And living in service to Sacred Truth means working to find waysof of conveying it - to put other truth -philosophy, literature, archaeology, economics, language - at the service of the Gospel, so that it may be better understood believed and lived. As Dominic's successor put it: "The rule of the Friars Preachers..... to live virtuously, to learn and to teach."

Liturgical Life:

Dominicans are to be given over to the LITURGICAL LIFE OF THE CHURCH, to be geniunely taken up in the mystery of Christ which they proclaim. They are to offer the Divine Office, (the Prayer of the Church) for the good of the whole Church, joining with the whole Church in Christ's own prayer to the Father in the heavenly sanctuary.

The Vows:

They are to live the VOWED LIFE - to be conformed to the example of Christ who was poor and loved the poor: "Naked to follow the naked Christ". They are to be conformed to the example of Christ whose human love focussed on the Father and on the whole human family. They are to be conformed to Christ whose food was to do not His own will, but the Will of the One who sent Him. By Vows they are freed for life in God, for witness and for service in the Church.

Monastic Observance:

The Dominican lives under the discipline of MONASTIC OBSERVANCE. The disciplined round of daily routine requires him again and again to submit to the common good and the Will of God, and it provides the environment in which contemplation is possible. At the heart of the Dominican ideal of community is the description in Acts 2 of the common life of the apostles. "And all who believed were together and had all things in common, and they sold their possessions and goods and distributed them to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they partook of food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favour with all the people. And the Lord added to their number daily those who were being saved."

Apostolate:

The Dominican is called to be an APOSTLE, preaching the Gospel by word, but more especially by personal example and witness. The Church has always taught that the prayer, penance and witness of a religious man or woman is his or her PRIMARY APOSTOLATE.

This is absolutely true for the Dominican. St. Dominic knew, rightly, that the effectiveness of the external work of preaching depended on the true spirituality and integrity of life of the preacher.

So, prayer, study, preaching, liturgy, monastic observance, community, vowed life and the apostolate of preaching: the essense of Dominican life consists largely in an ordered integration of all these elements. Thus is formed the preacher who sits among his brothers and sisters at the feet of Jesus, the Preacher and Word. Filled with the water of life, the water of mercy that flows from the side of Christ, the Dominican is to turn and share that water as widely as generously as he can.

The Dominican ideal has had an almost infinite variety of embodiments. In the Dominican calendar of saints there are over a hundred and ten saints and "blesseds" each one with their own special gifts within the Dominican charism among them great saints such as:

St. Dominic - the apostolic contemplative

St. Thomas Aquinas - great "angelic" Doctor of the Church.

St. Catherine of Siena - Dominican tertiary and Doctor of the Church.

St. Hyacinth - Missionary

St. Peter - Martyr

St. Pius V - Pope

St. Rose of Lima - religious sister.

St. Vincent Ferrer - preacher and wonder-worker.

St. Martin de Porres - servant of Christ in the poor.

The list goes on and on. It is a mixed collection - men and women, clergy and laity; some famous, some hidden and obscure; united around a love for Truth which comes from God and leads to God and which must be the measure of all human activity.