Our Patron Saint

St. Dominic was born in Calaruega, Spain in 1170 to Felix Guzman and Joanna of Aza. He studied at the University at Palencia and was probably ordained there while pursuing his studies. When Dominic received the habit of the Regular Canons at Osma at the age of 24, his parents were deceased. While in France he was greatly saddened when he witnessed the ravages of the Albigensian heresy. Henceforth he devoted his life to the conversion of heretics and the defense of the faith. He was a man of conspicuous and eminent talent, and probably one of the greatest orators that ever lived. The Albigenses were amazed and angered by his learned discourses. A public thesis written by Dominic was tossed into a fire, along with a disclamatory document written by the heretics. Dominic's thesis, through divine intercession miraculously escaped three times from the flames completely unscathed while the other was consumed. This miracle converted many to the side of this Saint, and is memorialized in sculpture at his tomb in Bologna. In 1208, while kneeling in the chapel of Notre Dame at Prouille, the Blessed Lady appeared before him holding a Rosary in her hand. She instructed him how to say it and bade him preach it as an antidote to heresy and sin. His conversion of over 100,000 heretics and sinners testify to the power of this prayer and it was adopted by all Christendom. At 46 he established a convent of nuns at Prouille for the education of Catholic children which later became the Order of Dominican nuns. He convoked the first general council of the Order at Bologna in 1220. He died there the following year on August 6, 1221, at 51 years of age, after being forced by illness to return from a preaching tour in Hungary.

He was canonized a saint on July 13, 1234 and is the patron saint of astronomers. His Feast day is Aug. 8.

Prayer to Saint Dominic God of Truth you gave your church a new light in the life and preaching of our Father Dominic. Give us the help we need to support our preaching by holy and simple lives. We ask this through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, God, forever and ever. Amen		All the evidence goes to show that St. Dominic was a man of remarkable attractiveness of character and broadness of vision; he had the deepest compassion for every sort of human suffering; he saw the need to use all the resources of human learning in the service of Christ; his constant reading was St. Matthew's gospel, St. Paul's letters and the Conferences of St. John Cassian. The order that he founded was a formative factor in the religious and intellectual life of later medieval Europe; its diffusion is now world-wide. This saint was the subject of the song 'Dominique' that was so popular in 1963-4; his emblems are a star and a dog with a torch in its mouth.