For want of a better word

When Dominic founded the Order of Preachers in 1216, he’d been appalled by the rise of the Albigensian heresy, denying the goodness of God’s creation. Even more appalling was the lack of informed preaching to inoculate the congregation against it. Dominic threw himself into the kind of witness modeled by the Acts of the Apostles, his new religious community adopting the motto “to praise, to bless, to preach.” Not surprisingly, the Dominicans have given us eloquent saints, including Catherine of Siena and Thomas Aquinas—even captivating the world in 1963 with a chart-topping pop song, “Dominique.” To quote another Dominican, Saint Martin de Porres: “Everything, even sweeping … could be a prayer, if it were offered to God.” MEMORIAL OF DOMINIC, PRIEST