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 He
is born in 1171 in
Caleruega,
a little Spanish village nearby the table of the harsh, rough,
but stunningly beautiful Castile.
At the end of the XIIth century and the beginning
of the XIIIth, entire western Europe was perturbed
by striking political, social and ecclesial changes :
ü
feudalism knows a time of severe difficulty and starts
loosing its power: many little states are created and
individual rights become stronger compared to the landlord’s
authority;
ü
a
relatively peaceful period encourages the development of
commerce. New towns are founded, and they soon become all
quite jealous of their own independence;
ü
moreover, this peace favours a demographic explosion: there
is a strong migration from all rural areas which no longer
represent the main source of sustenance. The new citizens
organise themselves in corporations based on specific rules,
while the monasteries, which used to be important centres of
evangelisation in rural areas, now loose their influence.
It’s the time of the building of the cathedrals.
ü
the Church itself goes through a time of harsh crisis:
the richness of the hierarchy together with the miserable
condition and the poor formation of the clergy within it,
generate great scandal; on the outside, the heretical
movements seem to be extremely successful but at the same
time they confuse people and churches are left almost empty.
Dominic belongs to this time; he comes from noble origins, and
his family’s is characterised by great tenderness and faith.
Since very young he is entrusted to the cares of an uncle of
his, a priest, who gets in charge of the boy’s education. From
now on his life will then trace its path, in an almost natural
way, towards a specific vocation: priesthood.
 He
continues his studies at the university of Palencia.
During a famine he comes across and experiences in a very
close way his people’s sufferance; he realises that studying
or preaching the Word of God means, above all, embodying it:
so, without hesitation, and urged by the passion that
characterises him, he decides to sell all his books: “I
cannot continue to study on dead skins while the poorest
people, brothers of mine, die of hunger”.
 In
1198, as a young priest, we meet him amidst the regular canons,
in solitude, at the shade of the
Osma cathedral where, in silence and prayer, he dedicates his
whole life to contemplation and study, yearning to know God’s
true face as revealed in the Scriptures but most of all in
crucified Christ. In this period, Dominic also
experiences the force and the support of the community.
 We
could now think that Dominic’s life is already and
conclusively traced. But in 1204,
invited by his bishop Diego who entrusts him of a diplomatic
mission in Denmark, Dominic sets off from Spain and from its
securities for an adventure that will not only enrich him, but
also many others. He is 33
years old and he will never return to his homeland again.
In fact, nobody who is travelling and passing borders, coping
 with
the need of comparing himself with different realities and
mentalities, can ever remain the same, and this is especially
true for such a man as Dominic, in whom dwells a yearning
desire of communicating with other people his profound
experience of a God who makes him live free and happy…
Two encounters… a double shocking experience… will be the
“melting pot” where the Lord will forge in Dominic his
characteristic essence of “preacher”:
ü
In Toulouse, talking with the
hotelkeeper –a Chatharist eretic who refuses to acknowledge
the mystery of Incarnation – Dominic experiences the urge of
reaching out to this world, characterised by heresy, and to
be present in it by “giving flesh” to God the Father’s
merciful and compassionate heart whose desire is that
everyone may come to salvation.
 ü
In Montpellier, coming across a group of catholic
missionaries, sure of the own richness but because of them
strongly opposed by the heretics, Dominic feels deep inside
himself that the God represented in Jesus “servant
without neither glory nor prestige” cannot be preached
on the base of power or domination: “Get off your horses
and set off two by two, in voluntary poverty…”
From now on, as far as Dominic will be concerned, either the
encounters with those who are hungry of bread or truth, or the
time spent with the Word itself, will represent means of
constant contemplation and total laying down of his life, and
will make his entire person become a “living Preaching”.
For this reason, when he begins to gather around himself his
first friars, he can –in spite of the oppositions advanced by
those around him- send them on the roads two by two: the
Dominican grace is now been born and the power of its
vivifying spirit will fill to the rim the thirsty hearts of
many women and men, religious and lays…
ü
In
Prouille… a monastery founded for young converted Catharist
women who dedicated themselves to prayer and silence,
ü
In Toulouse… where the first
Dominican community receives the official acknowledgment of
“Holy Preaching” from Pope Onorius III in December 1216.
ü
In the whole of Europe: Paris, Bologna, Oxford,
Colony…
“if the grain seed is not scattered everywhere, it will
rot…”
Between 1220 and 1221, Dominic defines the guidelines of the
Order: the friars, in order of having the
possibility of dedicating themselves completely to the
“preaching of the Word”, will be sent to the frontiers, with
unwavering faith on the Word and characterised by their
searching the Truth, no matter where it may be present, in an
always boundless fraternity…
Consumed by the passion for God’s service, while transmitting
Life to all men and women, Dominic ends his life in Bologna on
August 6th, 1221. On
July 3rd 1234, Pope Gregory IX will proclaim him
“SAINT”.
* illustrations by Augusta Curreli
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