Posted in DOMINICAN OP, MORNING Prayers, NOVENAS

Novena to St Dominic – DAY FOUR – 2 August

Novena to St Dominic

Fourth Day: St. Dominic’s Prayer

Be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and inspired songs. Sing praise to the Lord with all your hearts.   Give thanks to God the Father always and for everything in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Ephesians 5:18-20)

Prayer was the breath of St. Dominic’s life, the light on his path, the staff on his pilgrimage.   He prayed always.   In childhood his delight was to serve Mass, to visit the Blessed Sacrament and to chant Office.   As a student, he learned wisdom more from prayer than from books.   He won more souls by prayer than by preaching or miracles.   In traveling, St Dominic prayed as he went, sometimes the Veni Creator Spiritus or the Ave Maris Stella or sometimes he recited psalms.   He often reminded his companions to think of God.   Many times St. Dominic spent the night in prayer before the altar.   His methods of prayer were various:  sometimes he lay prostrate, then stood erect, then knelt down.   For hours he would stand before a crucifix, genuflecting and making fervent ejaculations.   Often he stretched out his arms like a cross, pleading earnestly to God.   On occasion he was seen in rapture by the vehemence of his prayer.  “In all labours and trials, in hunger, thirst, fatigue, his heart turned always to God.”

Pray for us, blessed father, St. Dominic, That we may be made worthy of the prom­ises of Christ.

Let us pray:

O God,
who enlightened Your Church
by the virtues and preaching of St Dominic,
Your confessor and our father,
mercifully grant that by his prayers
we may be delivered from present dangers
and ever increase in spiritual blessings.
We pray too, that we may learn
from our blessed St Dominic,
to pray always, constantly living with You
in our hearts, minds and souls.
Pray too Holy St Dominic,
that our prayers and yours,
may draw back those
who have lapsed from the one, true faith
and for this our special intention …
(make your request)
Through Christ our Lord. Amen

DAY FOUR - NOVENA TO ST DOMINIC 2 AUG

Posted in DOMINICAN OP, MORNING Prayers, NOVENAS

Novena to St Dominic – DAY THREE – 1 August

Novena to St Dominic

Third Day:  Compunction of Heart
Those who fear the Lord seek to please him, those who love him are filled with his law. Those who fear the Lord prepare their hearts and humble themselves before him. Let us fall into the hands of the Lord and not into the hands of men, for equal to his majesty is the mercy that he shows. (Sirach 2: 16-18)

ROSA PATIENTIAE               ROSE OF PATIENCE

Though so pure that Holy Church calls him “Ivory of Chastity” and Christian art puts a lily into his hands, Dominic was always weeping over sin.   His soul being full of contrition, acts of sorrow were constantly upon his lips.   On seeing towns or villages, he used to weep over the sins committed there against God.   But this sorrow was not merely hidden in the soul;  it bore fruit in works of penance.   Three times every night he scourged himself:  once for his own sins, once for those of others and once for the suffering souls.   He was a rule of abstinence, even on journeys never eating meat or food cooked with meat.   His fasts were strict and continual; even when traveling over Europe on foot, he fasted from September until Easter, though preaching daily.   He never had a room of his own but slept anywhere: on the ground, a bench, or the altar step.   Being a zealous lover of the rule, he punished faults but with such fatherly love that penance was accepted and even desired from his hands.

“If you have no sins of your own to weep for,” St. Dominic would say, “still weep, after the example of our Lord Jesus Christ and grieve for the sinners of the world that they may repent.”

Anyone who does not take up his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:27)

Pray for us, blessed father, St. Dominic, That we may be made worthy of the prom­ises of Christ.

Let us pray:

O zealous preacher of penance,
Holy Father St. Dominic,
whose ardent desire for the salvation of souls,
made you ever ready to endure the greatest labours and fatigues
and even to give your life in order to win them to God,
pray for us, that treading in the steps of Jesus Crucified,
the Redeemer and Physician of souls,
we may disregard all suffering
and generously sacrifice ourselves
for the needs of others.
Grant us we pray, true contrition and
sadness for our sins and for those of all the world.
Teach us how to do penance for all the pain we cause
our Lord and Saviour.
Pray too Holy St Dominic,
that our penance may draw back those
who have lapsed from the one, true faith
and for this our special intention …
(make your request)
Through the same Christ our Lord. Amen

DAY THREE - NOVENA TO ST DOMINIC