St. Dominic

Their story

Dominic de Guzmán was born around 1170 in Caleruega, in Castile, Spain. As a student he was known for his compassion: during a famine he sold his precious books to buy food for the hungry, saying he would not study on dead skins while people were dying of hunger. He became a priest and a canon of the cathedral of Osma, living in community under the Rule of St. Augustine. In 1203 Dominic traveled with his bishop through southern France, where many people had embraced a heresy called Albigensianism, which taught that the material world is evil. The Church's official preachers there traveled in great luxury and convinced few people. Dominic saw that the Gospel had to be preached by men who lived in poverty, studied deeply and loved the people they taught. He began preaching on foot, begging for his food and debating with patience and charity. He also founded a community of nuns, many of them converts, at Prouille. In 1216 the pope approved Dominic's new community, the Order of Preachers, known as the Dominicans. Dominic sent his friars to the great university cities of Europe to study and to preach. It was said of him that he spoke only with God or about God. Dominicans have long spread devotion to the rosary, and tradition links it with Dominic himself. He died in Bologna on August 6, 1221, and was canonized in 1234.