St Dominic de Guzman

Friar, Founder - Order of Preachers [Dominicans] (1170 - 1221)
Feast / Memorial Day: August 8A white habit with large scapular and black mantle, a tonsure (a shaven crown), and usually clean-shaven face are common characteristics of the appearance of St Dominic. Dominic almost always carries a flowering lily, a symbol of chastity, and has a book that indicates his devotion to a rule. He often appears with a star shining from his forehead, a symbol of wisdom. In later representations, he may be accompanied by a dog holding a torch in its mouth, in reference to a dream his mother had before he was born - a dream interpreted later as a prophecy that the child would inflame the world with his words. According to some, the dog can be explained by assonance with the name of the Order, Dominicanus (Domini canis)

Previously the feast of St Dominic was celebrated on August 4, and by special indult, it is still celebrated on that date in Bologna, Italy, the city in which St Dominic died. It has now been transferred to the first free day in August, after the feasts of the Basilica of St Mary Major, the Transfiguration and St Cajetan.

Born of the noble Guzman family at Caleruega, Spain, Dominic received his early education at Palencia and then became an Augustinian canon at the cathedral of Osma. At the age of 24, he accompanied his bishop, Diego de Azevedo, on a mission to Denmark that took them through Southern France. There they came face to face with the Albigensian, Catharist, and Waldensian heresies. They immediately began an apostolate of preaching. Bishop Diego returned to Spain to recruit more preachers but he died while there, and Dominic was left practically alone to carry on the preaching ministry.

In 1215 he founded a monastery of cloistered nuns at Prouille, near Toulouse, who would support the preaching ministry by their prayers. By 1217, the year in which Pope Honorius III confirmed the name and mission of the Friars Preachers, they had taken up residence at the church of St Romain in Toulouse, thanks to the kindness of Bishop Fulk. The papal bulls approving the Order of Preachers were issued by Pope Honorius III in 1218.

Dominic adopted the Rule of St Augustine as the rule of life and borrowed from the Premonstratensian Statutes for the primitive Dominican Constitution. In those Constitutions, he placed great emphasis on personal and community poverty, the ministry of preaching, and assiduous study of sacred truth. St Dominic stipulated that the Constitution as such does not bind under sin and that superiors have the power to grant a dispensation. Although the friars lived a monastic life, Dominic stated that the purpose of the Order was preaching for the salvation of souls. Very soon there were Dominican friars in Madrid, Rome, and Bologna. St Dominic always preferred to make foundations in university cities but he was also greatly interested in the foreign missions.

By July 1218, Dominic was in Italy, where he preached in numerous cities, organized the monastery of nuns at St Sixtus in Rome, and received from the pope the basilica of Santa Sabina, which is still the headquarters of the Dominican Order. He was also designated as the Master of the Sacred Palace, and to this day a Dominican holds that office. While on a preaching mission in northern Italy, Dominic was stricken with his last illness. He died in the midst of his brethren at Bologna, promising them that he would be of more use to them in heaven than if he were to remain with them. It was the evening of the feast of St Sixtus, 1221.