ORDER OF PREACHERS
The Dominican Family
Trinidad & Tobago

WHAT ARE THE DOMINICAN LAY FRATERNITIES

After the Second Vatican Council, all religious institutes had to bring their rules and constitutions up–to–date in conformity with the Council. In 1968 the Order of Preachers began to refer to the “Dominican Laity”.

Orders of Penance

Prior to that, from the time of St. Dominic, when there were many lay associations of penance, some of these groups attached themselves to the Order in a fairly loose juridical bond. They were known as “The Brothers and Sisters of Penance of St. Dominic” or as the “Third Order of Penance of St. Dominic”. They were later referred to as “Tertiaries”, a reference to the Third Order. The other two orders were First Order that included the friars, both priests and brothers; Second Order that embraced the cloistered nuns; Third Order was the term that referred to the apostolic Sisters and the Lay Fraternities.

As the thirteenth century wore on, the secular clergy, who in fact were in great need of reform, objected very strongly to the associations of penitents and there were many difficulties for the members, to the extent that many groups were in, what might be called, open rebellion. The groups associated with the Order of Preachers had no serious problems with the Church or with the Order. In some places the members took to wearing a black cloak to identify them as Dominicans.

Rule of Munio of Zamora

To avoid potential problems, Munio of Zamora, seventh Master of the Order, wrote a "Rule for the Brothers and Sisters of Penance of Saint Dominic." There was a very clear dependence on the Order imposed on the members. They were obliged to the Divine Office, even to rising during the night to recite certain Hours. However, if a member could not read, a specific number of the Lord’s Prayer and ‘Hail Marys’ could be substituted.

Members were encouraged to attend their parish church and respect their pastors. The Rule obliged them to confession four times a year and to receive Communion at Christmas, Easter, Pentecost and the Feast of the Assumption or the Nativity of Mary. The rule did not oblige under pain of sin, a point taken from the Constitutions of the friars.

Pope Honorius IV approved the Rule in 1286, incorporated the penitents into the Order and gave them many privileges.

New Title, New Concept

The new title of “Dominican Laity” indicates a fresh approach to the relationship between the lay fraternities and the Order. Before, the stress was on prayer and penance; now it points to the involvement of these groups and their members in the life, charism. and mission of the Order. The term “Dominican Family” has come into vogue and is expressive of the unity and diversity that exists between the friars, nuns, apostolic sisters, secular institutes and lay fraternities.

The question might be legitimately asked: why this somewhat sudden change of name and concept after seven hundred between 1286 and 1987? The answer is to be found in the Second Vatican Council’s teaching on the role and dignity of the laity. “The Third Order” was generally regarded as a pious movement, purely spiritual. Prayer and penance continued in the tradition of the earliest Orders of Penance. The members followed a spirituality that was fundamentally monastic. They were not seen as having a vocation essentially apostolic. The Dominic charism, consisting of the four pillars of prayer, study, community and preaching mission, was regarded as outside the lay vocation. The Vatican Council changed that concept. It taught that the sanctification of the world is the vocation of the laity. Dominican laity, called to live the charism given to St. Dominic, find in the spirit of the Order an effective means to grow in holiness in the secular environment in which they live as lay faithful. They are called to change the secular culture of the political, economic and social world around them from within as they encounter this in work, in social gatherings and in various aspects of their everyday lives.

In 1987 the new Rule for the Lay Fraternities, a word used by Munio of Zamora in the first constitution of the laity, was published by the Holy See. Nine years later, in 1996, the Holy See approved the Rule for the Priestly Fraternities of St. Dominic.

The Four Pillars

What makes a Dominican different from others is, as the Rule says (§4), the particular style of their spiritual life and of their service to God and to their neighbour in the Church. This is summed up in the emphasis placed on the four pillars, as they are called: prayer, study, community and apostolic preaching mission.

Prayer

The Rule §10 spells out what Dominican Prayer Life is. It begins with reading Sacred Scripture and listening to the word of God. From this comes evangelisation of one’s life and a desire to respond to God.

This response is expressed in liturgical celebrations: daily Mass, Liturgy of the Hours, both being the prayer of the Church and the basis of Dominican Prayer Life.

There is to be regular celebration of the Sacrament of Reconciliation.

The Rosary is a gift from God to the world through the Dominican Family. Consequently, none should be as faithful to this great devotion, approved by many Popes, as members of the Order.

Finally there is private prayer, not ‘saying prayers’ but praying spontaneously from the heart, what the Rule calls “meditation”.

Study

The Constitutions of the Friars state: “St. Dominic included study, ordained to the ministry of salvation, as an essential part of his plan for the Order: in this was no small innovation….  Before all else, our study should aim principally and ardently at this that we might be able to be useful to the souls of our neighbours." It is not sufficient to produce facile answers to the needs and questions of our contemporaries but we ought to be competent to share with them the fulnes of the truth of a matter. Study is not a recommendation but an essential ingredient in the preaching of the Word of God. To neglect study would be to abandon the charism of St. Dominic.

St. Catherine wrote in her Dialogue: “Look at the ship of thy father Dominic, My beloved son: he ordered it most perfectly, wishing that his sons should apply themselves only to My honour and the salvation of souls, with the light of science [study], which light he laid as his principal foundation, not, however, on that account, being deprived of true and voluntary poverty, but having it also.... But for his more immediate and personal object he took the light of in order to extirpate the errors which had arisen in his time, thus taking on him the office of My only–begotten Son, the Word.”

Community

The Rule of the Lay Fraternities states: "The [members] do their best to live in true community in the spirit of the beatitudes, and they give expression to this in regard to other members of the fraternity, particularly the poor and the sick, and as circumstances require, by doing works of mercy and sharing with them what resources they may have, and by offering prayers for the dead; so that all may be united in heart and soul in God."

Here it can be seen what community means in the Lay Fraternities. It does not necessarily mean living in the same house and doing the same things together all the time. It is a relationship of spiritual unity which manifests itself in the attitude of a member to the others in the Chapter and Fraternity. It is parallel to the Church, broad as it is, which is a community yet is so diverse in its members and their gifts. In all decisions and debates Lay Fraternities look for an agreement that is as near unanimous as possible. This is the spirit of community.

Apostolic Preaching Mission

By “apostolic” is meant that the Order of Preachers has the authority of the Popes behind it to be an Order whose main responsibility is preaching

By “preaching” is meant any form of communication by which the word of God is spread around, either to large groups or to individuals. This preaching is expressed in word, writing, teaching, catechetics, distributing books, and/or as the Rule says (§1), by “radiating the presence of Christ in the midst of the peoples so that the divine message of salvation be known and accepted everywhere by the whole of mankind."

By “mission” is meant that each member is ‘sent’ and that he or she seeks opportunities to share the word of God in the npolitical, economic life of the world surrounding him or her.

Patrons

St. Catherine of Siena, a lay woman, is the patroness of the Lay Fraternities. Other lay Dominican were St. Rome of Lima, St. Zedislava Berkiana, Saints. Lawrence Ruiz, lay Dominican & Companions, St. Louis–Marie Grignion de Montfort, a priest, Bl. Jane of Aza, Mother of St. Dominic, Bl. Margaret of Castello, Bl. Sibyllina Biscossi, Bl. Osanna of Kotor, Bl. Villana de Botti, Bl. Albert of Bergamo, Bl. Mary–Bartholomew Bagnesi, Bl. Osanna of Mantua, Bl. Adrian Fortescue, Bl. Jane of Orvieto, Bl. Catherine Racconigi, Bl. Bartolomeo Longo, Bl. Magdalen Panatieri, Bl. Benvenuta Bojani, Bl. Pier Giorgio Frassati, and many others.

Papal Encouragement

"Among the means of holiness most useful and opportune for the defence and progress of Christian faith and morals in our day, we recognize the Dominican Third Order as one of the most eminent, easy, and secure." (Pope Benedict XV)

"We hope that the ranks of the Third Order [Dominicans] will gather numerous young men and women who, without having a religious vocation, aspire to a more perfect Christian life, who aspire to make a more complete gift of themselves." (Pope Pius XII)