Saint of the Day – 14 October – St Dominic Loricatus OSB.Cam (995-1060) Abbot Founder, Penitent, Hermit, friend and spiritual student of Saint Peter Damian. Born in 995 in Luceolis, Duchy of Spoleto, Italy and died on 14 October in 1060 in Poggio San Vicino, Marche of Camerino in Italy.
The Roman Martyrology reads today: “The departure from this world of St Dominic Loricatus.”
A Camaldolese Monk in Fonte Avellana, he was called by his friend and teacher St Peter Damian, to lead the new hermit community of the Monastery of the Holy Trinity which he had founded on the slopes of San Vicino.
He was the hero of penance, an unprecedented penance, entirely aimed at mortifying his body, to the point of wearing, without ever removing it, a kind of iron shirt with linked discs, the “lorica” (brestplate), from which he took his name.
He died on 14 October 1060 and his cult quickly spread wherever there was a Camaldolese community. His body was placed for veneration, in the Church of the Holy Trinity,which the Monks rebuilt between the late 13th and early 14th Centuries, dedicating it to him.
When the Monastery was abandoned in 1400, the spiritual care of Frontale and the cult of Saint Dominic were entrusted to the secular Clergy.
In 1776, the holy body was translated to the Church of Saint Anna in Frontale.
AnaStpaul 