Feast Day of St. Dominic
August 9, 2026
Your contribution to the kingdom is important.
GOSPEL
“You are the salt of the earth. But if salt loses its taste, with what can it be seasoned? It is no longer good for anything but to be thrown out and trampled underfoot.* You are the light of the world. A city set on a mountain cannot be hidden. (j) Nor do they light a lamp and then put it under a bushel basket; it is set on a lampstand, where it gives light to all in the house. (k) Just so, your light must shine before others, that they may see your good deeds and glorify your heavenly Father. (l) “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets. I have come not to abolish but to fulfill. Amen, I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or the smallest part of a letter will pass from the law, until all things have taken place. (m) Therefore, whoever breaks one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do so will be called least in the kingdom of heaven. But whoever obeys and teaches these commandments will be called greatest in the kingdom of heaven.*
* [5:1–7:29] The first of the five discourses that are a central part of the structure of this gospel. It is the discourse section of the first book and contains sayings of Jesus derived from Q and from M. The Lucan parallel is in that gospel’s “Sermon on the Plain” (Lk 6:20–49), although some of the sayings in Matthew’s “Sermon on the Mount” have their parallels in other parts of Luke. The careful topical arrangement of the sermon is probably not due only to Matthew’s editing; he seems to have had a structured discourse of Jesus as one of his sources. The form of that source may have been as follows: four beatitudes (Mt 5:3–4, 6, 11–12), a section on the new righteousness with illustrations (Mt 5:17, 20–24, 27–28, 33–48), a section on good works (Mt 6:1–6, 16–18), and three warnings (Mt 7:1–2, 15–21, 24–27).
* [5:13–16] By their deeds the disciples are to influence the world for good. They can no more escape notice than a city set on a mountain. If they fail in good works, they are as useless as flavorless salt or as a lamp whose light is concealed.
* [5:13] The unusual supposition of salt losing its flavor has led some to suppose that the saying refers to the salt of the Dead Sea that, because chemically impure, could lose its taste.
* [5:17–20] This statement of Jesus’ position concerning the Mosaic law is composed of traditional material from Matthew’s sermon documentation (see note on Mt 5:1–7:29), other Q material (cf. Mt 18; Lk 16:17), and the evangelist’s own editorial touches. To fulfillthe law appears at first to mean a literal enforcement of the law in the least detail: until heaven and earth pass away nothing of the law will pass (Mt 5:18). Yet the “passing away” of heaven and earth is not necessarily the end of the world understood, as in much apocalyptic literature, as the dissolution of the existing universe. The “turning of the ages” comes with the apocalyptic event of Jesus’ death and resurrection, and those to whom this gospel is addressed are living in the new and final age, prophesied by Isaiah as the time of “new heavens and a new earth” (Is 65:17; 66:22). Meanwhile, during Jesus’ ministry when the kingdom is already breaking in, his mission remains within the framework of the law, though with significant anticipation of the age to come, as the following antitheses (Mt 5:21–48) show.
* [5:19] Probably these commandments means those of the Mosaic law. But this is an interim ethic “until heaven and earth pass away.”
i. [5:13] Mk 9:50; Lk 14:34–35.
j. [5:14] Jn 8:12.
k. [5:15] Mk 4:21; Lk 8:16; 11:33.
l. [5:16] Jn 3:21.
m. [5:18] Lk 16:17.
ENCOUNTER CHRIST REFLECTIONS AND MEDITATIONS
Preparation for the Session
Adapted from Sacred Space: The Prayer Book 2025
Presence of God: Jesus, As I come to you today, fill my heart, my whole being, with the wonder of your sacred presence. Help me to become more aware of your presence in my life, and more receptive to that presence. I desire to love you as you love me. May nothing ever separate me from you. (1-2 minutes of silence)
Freedom: Jesus, Grant me the grace to have freedom of spirit. Keep me from being bound by desires and actions that are not good for me or others. Cleanse my heart and soul that I may live joyously in your love. (1-2 minutes of silence)
Consciousness: Where am I with God? With others in my life? What am I grateful for? Is there something I am sorry for, words or actions that have hurt others, and which I now regret? I take a moment to ask forgiveness of God and of those whom I have hurt. God, I give you thanks for your constant love and care for me. Keep me always aware of your presence in my life. (2-3 minutes of silence)
Opening Prayer
Lord, it is through engagement with others that our light will shine. So it was with St. Dominic, and so it is with me. I need to see how important I am to the mission, even though my contribution may be small. Help me to persevere in personal time of blandness and darkness so that I can reflect and amplify the beauty of your Kingdom.
Companions for the Journey
A History of St. Dominic and the founding of the Dominican order. Adapted and sometimes stolen from various sources, including the magazine of the English and Scottish Dominicans, 2021 (O.P.’s quoted by name are English Dominicans.)
The Order of Preachers honors St Dominic de Guzman (c.1174 - 1221), who was born in the small Castilian village of Caleruega, as its founder but, as Fr Simon Tugwell OP notes, “the Order was not simply his personal brainchild and he was not, and never claimed to be, its sole inspiration or even the primary embodiment of its nature and ideals.” Rather, Dominic was raised up by Providence to bring to birth a new movement within the Church - itinerant mendicant friars - and he accomplished this by engaging with the needs of his time and in collaboration with other people. “It was always with his brethren and with the authorities of the Church that he shaped the nascent Order of Preachers. As an adolescent, he had a particular love of theology and the Scriptures became the foundation of his spirituality. During his studies and Palencia, Spain, he experienced a dreadful famine, prompting him to sell all his books and other equipment to help his neighbors. He was made a canon and ordained to the priesthood in the Monastery of Santa Maria de la Vid. After completing his studies he was appointed to the cathedral chapter of Osma. In 1203, Dominic, now a Canon, traveled with his bishop, Diego, through the south of France and encountered the Albigensians who taught that the physical world is evil. This heresy not only devalued our own humanity, but also Christ and the sacramental life of the Church. After an all-night debate in Toulouse with an Albigensian innkeeper whom he converted, Dominic was moved by compassion and realized the great ignorance of the Faith that existed. Thus he saw the need for preachers who could reach the people and could explain and defend the faith. So began the friars’ life of itinerant mendicancy, with their base at the newly-founded monastery of nuns at Prouille. After Diego’s death in 1207, Dominic, eschewing the violence which was then being waged against the Albigensians, devoted himself to preaching and the rigors of the apostolic life which he had begun with bishop Diego. In Languedoc, where Dominic called himself “the humble servant of the preaching”, a small band of co-workers had joined him and in 1215, Bishop Fulk of Toulouse approved the foundation of a new religious order. “Concern for the Faith was the main concern of the new Order”. Later that year, he travelled with Fulk to Rome to meet Pope Innocent III. The pope advised Dominic to adopt an existing Rule as new rules were forbidden by the Fourth Lateran Council. In 1216, Dominic and his brethren adopted the Rule of St Augustine which he had already been keeping as a canon of Osma. Fr Vladimir Koudelka, OP, notes that “they chose the Augustinian Rule, not for what it contains, but for what, by virtue of its universality, it does not contain. This enabled them to specify in the customs which they added to the rule the goal of their order and the new means for attaining their goal, without contradicting the rule.” On 22 December 1216, Pope Honorius III approved the foundation of the St Dominic’s community and took them under papal protection. Finally, on 21 January 1217, Pope Honorius III issued a second bull to Dominic which crowned the first and completed the confirmation of the Order. The new bull conferred on the new Order a ‘revolutionary’ name and office - an order of preachers rather than just an order comprised of people who are preaching. The pope thus addresses Dominic and his sons as “Friars Preachers” and entrusts them with the preaching mission. Dominic had obtained, explicitly and officially, what he had first petitioned from Innocent III: “An Order which would be called and would be an Order of Preachers.” Having obtained confirmation of his Order from Pope Honorius III, on 15 August 1217 St Dominic placed his trust in God and dispersed the sixteen brethren that then comprised the Friars Preachers to Paris, Spain, Rome and Bologna, and the pope commended the universal mission of the Dominicans to the bishops in 1218. Dominic inspired his followers to develop a ”mixed” spirituality. They were both active in preaching and contemplative in study, prayer and meditation. The brethren of the Dominican order were urbane and learned as well and contemplative and mystical in their spirituality. From the beginning, friars have been drawn to urban centers and, in distinction from the monks, preached the Gospel to city-dwellers in their own vernacular languages, not Latin. As Fr Anthony Ross OP said, “the Black Friars lived in contact with the bustle of life in towns and cities, although some monastic elements of prayer and silence were retained in the domestic life of their communities”, thus combining the Dominican elements of contemplation and apostolic ministry. However, St Dominic did not just choose cities but university towns, for there his friars could study, engage with new ideas and recruit new friars. On August 15, 1217, Dominic dispatched seven of his followers to the great university center of Paris to establish a priory focused on study and preaching. The Convent of St. Jacques, would eventually become the order's first studium generale. Dominic was to establish similar foundations at other university towns of the day, Bologna in 1218, Palencia and Montpellier in 1220, and Oxford just before his death in 1221. Fr. Simon Tugwell notes: “Dominic’s policy is clear: it was from the great universities of Europe that he wanted his order to radiate. The friars clearly met the needs of rapidly expanding city life and the intellectual challenge of the new universities, and St Dominic’s strategy of expansion, which was ably continued by his successor, Bl Jordan of Saxony, was immensely successful.” Between 1217 and 1222, the Order had established 40 priories in 8 provinces. By the end of the thirteenth century there were 404 priories and almost 15,000 friars including a province in the Holy Land. The Order in eight centuries has encompassed theologians and philosophers like St Albert and St Thomas Aquinas, Garrigou-Lagrange and Chenu, Congar and Schillebeeckx, mystics like St Catherine of Siena, Tauler and Meister Eckhart, artists like Fra Angelico and Michelangelo, humble saints like St Martin de Porres and St Agnes of Montepulciano, reformers like St Antoninus and Pope St Pius V, and prophetic preachers like St Vincent Ferrer, Savonarola, Bartolomé de las Casas, Francisco de Vitoria, Lacordaire and Gustavo Gutierrez. Today, there are Dominicans in over 100 countries, over 41 provinces and vicariates and some 6,500 friars, 4,000 nuns, 35,000 active sisters, and over 100,000 lay Dominicans in the Dominican Family.
Living the Good News
What action can you take in the next week as a response to today's reading and discussion? Keep a private journal of your prayer/actions responses this week. Feel free to use the personal reflection questions which follow.
Reflection Questions:
The enemy of this gospel is the feeling that we are too insignificant to matter. In my own life, how can I counteract this self-defeating tendency to be passive rather than active?
What is an “everyday saint”?
Do you feel you are one?
What does it mean to be light for the world?
What does it NOT mean?
For a lot of our religious history, we have been taught that our main mission is to avoid sin, to stay out of trouble, to perfect our interior spiritual development. Period. This gospel passage runs counter to that. How much of my life has been spent on my own personal growth and spiritual development, and how much has been spent witnessing to others?
Walter Burghardt, S.J., has described our mission in life as “Grace on Crutches”. How does work as a metaphor for our own personal brokenness and imperfection and our role in this world?
Is the career I find myself in utterly divorced from the directives contained in this gospel?
How?
Is there anything I can do to change this?
Are there people or places in our area where a Christian witness is for all intents and purposes absent?
Can we do anything about that?
What are some “non-heroic” actions people can take to make God’s kingdom more present?
Who are some of the discarded in this world for whom Christians can be salt and light?
Often criticism and judgmentalism leach all the flavor and joy out of life. Has this been my experience?
How do I counteract it?
Joy is something that can actually change the world. In what everyday ways do I radiate the joy of the gospel?
Without salt, food is tasteless and uninviting, or spoils and is discarded. Without care and concern, our world can become flat and unwelcoming, causing people’s hope and energy to wither and disappear. Despite all that we do already, many of us can do a little more. What is one thing you can do to spice up your little corner of the world?
Closing Prayer
Don’t forget to provide some prayer time at the beginning and at the end of the session (or both), allowing time to offer prayers for anyone you wish to pray for.
(Adapted from Sacred Space)
Lord, help us to see that we are children of the light, that our lives are illumined by you, the light of the world (John 8:12). Help us to see in your light the hidden hope of glory that is in us, so we can rejoice even in the darkness of the world. Help us to be light for others, for that is our commission.
For the Week Ahead
Weekly Memorization:
(Taken from the gospel for today's session)
You are the salt of the earth; your light must shine before others.
Meditations:
A Meditation in the Dominican Style/Asking Questions: Very often, when we are confronted with the teaching of Jesus that we are to be the light for the world, we claim that we would love to do more, but we are just too busy. Life is crazy right now, etc., “I don’t have time”. Here are some problems with that statement:
1. When will you ever have more time than you do now?
2. Who, actually, has more time than you do?
3. Have you evaluated the time commitment you might have to make, or are you dismissing any time commitment at all?
4. Excuse #492: I am so messed up myself I cannot possible be a good resource for anyone else.
Query: Were the first apostles always models of unselfishness, maturity and piety?
Query: What daily practices can I follow to sustain myself as someone for others?
Excuse #493: I have so much I am personally dealing with right now; I do not have the bandwidth to take on anyone else’s needs.
Query: Did the first apostles not have families, economic difficulties and relationship commitments as well?
A Meditation in the Franciscan Style/Action: Read Isaiah 58:6-10 "6.Is not this the sort of fast that pleases me: to break unjust fetters, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break all yokes? 7. Is it not sharing your food with the hungry, and sheltering the homeless poor; if you see someone lacking clothes, to clothe him, and not to turn away from your own kin? 8. Then your light will blaze out like the dawn and your wound be quickly healed over. Saving justice will go ahead of you and Yahweh's glory come behind you. 9. Then you will cry for help and Yahweh will answer; you will call and he will say, 'I am here.' If you do away with the yoke, the clenched fist and malicious words, 10. If you deprive yourself for the hungry and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, your light will rise in the darkness, and your darkest hour will be like noon." Both Sunday’s gospel and the first reading fly in the face of the commonly acknowledged “truth” that it takes money and power to change the world. Instead, says Walter Burghardt, S.J. the world needs Christian disciples, not just popes or martyrs, not great orators or donors to great causes. The world needs everyday, ordinary disciples who go about their lives witnessing to the message of Jesus to forgive, to care for the lonely, the sick, the hungry , to heal those has He did. Can I say I am disciple? Why or why not? Pick one thing you can do this week to be Christ for others. And do it.
A Meditation in the Augustinian Style/Relationship: (From Sacred Space, a service of the Irish Jesuits) Light does not change a room: it enables us to see what is in it. It helps us appreciate what is good and beautiful, just as it facilitates avoiding pitfalls. We are children of the light: our lives are illumined by Jesus, the light of the world (John 8:12). This light helps us to see the hidden hope of glory that is in us. So we can rejoice even in the darkness of the world.
Psalm 112: 4-9
"For the honest he shines as a lamp in the dark, generous, tender-hearted, and upright. 5. All goes well for one who lends generously, who is honest in all his dealing; 6. for all time to come he will not stumble, for all time to come the upright will be remembered. 7. Bad news holds no fears for him, firm is his heart, trusting in Yahweh. 8. His heart held steady, he has no fears, till he can gloat over his enemies. 9. To the needy he gives without stint, his uprightness stands firm for ever; his reputation is founded on strength.
Read this psalm as example of what it means to be salt and light, then write your own mini-psalm transliterating the words of the psalm into to first person (“all goes well for me who lends generously”, etc). Pray it every day this week.
Poetic Reflection
Thomas Centolella, a former Stegner Fellow from Stanford, has written a poem about “raising ourselves to the power of ten” in order to accommodate all the needs that are out there in our world. See if it says anything to you.
At Big Rec
A few hours spent in the dry rooms of the dying.
Then the walk home, and the sudden rain
comes hard, and you want it coming hard,
you want it hitting you in the forehead
like anointment, blessing all the days
that otherwise would be dismissed
as business as usual. Now you’re ready
to lean on the rail above the empty diamonds
where, in summer, the ballplayers wait patiently
for one true moment more alive than all the rest.
Now you’re ready for the ancient religion of dogs,
that unleashed romp through the wildness, responding
To no one’s liturgy but the field’s and the rain’s.
You’ve come this far, but you need to live further in.
You need to slip into the blind man for a while,
tap along with his cane past the market stalls
and take in, as if they were abandoned,
the little blue crabs which within an hour will be eaten.
You have to become large enough to accommodate
all the small lives that otherwise would be forgotten.
You have to raise yourself to the power of ten.
Love more, require less, love without regard
For form. You have to live further in.
