August 8: Saint Dominic / Santo Domingo

Jesus often uses paradoxes to shock His hearers to a new view of things. One of the most striking instances of this is in Matthew 16, 24-28, when Jesus says, “Anyone who wants to save his life will lose it; but anyone who loses his life for my sake will find it.” Another way of expressing that is to say, “If we seek ourselves only, we will lose ourselves; whereas, if we reach beyond ourselves towards God and towards His Son Jesus (and our neighbors as well) we will find our true selves.”

Saint Dominic (whose feastday we celebrate today) often preached that “If we care only for our own preferences, we risk losing ourselves; whereas if we look for God’s will, which always involves looking out for others, we will find life in this world and eternal life in the next.”  

Jesus expressed this fundamental paradox of His teaching in another way when He said, “Give and it will be given to you.” In other words, it is in giving that we receive.

Our experience of life teaches us the truth contained in the paradoxical way of the Lord. It is when we look beyond ourselves to serve the good of others, that we experience the Lord’s own joy, which is a foretaste of the fulfilment of life in the Kingdom of heaven. That life is the life already enjoyed by the Saints and it is the life for which we long – with all our heart, mind, and soul. “Saints of God, pray for us.”

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Celebramos el día festivo de Santo Domingo de Guzmán hoy. Él fue un hombre emprendedor, predicador infatigable, y fundador de la Orden de Predicadores. Fue un hombre sencillo con una profunda vida interior, de gran ecuanimidad y compasivo.

Santo Domingo dejó un testamento de paz, como herederos de lo que fue la pasión de su vida: vivir con Cristo y aprender de Él la vida apostólica. Configurarse con Cristo, esa fue la santidad de Domingo: su ardiente deseo de que la Luz de Cristo brillara para todos los hombres, su compasión por un mundo sufriente llamado a nacer a su verdadera vida, y su celo en servir a una Iglesia que ensanchara su tienda hasta alcanzar las dimensiones del mundo. Santo Domingo, ruega por nosotros.