Christ in Limbo (Fra Angelico)

Dear Brothers and Sisters in Saint Dominic,

Today's issue marks one full year of Veritas! Our first email was sent on March 21, 2022. The provincial team has done incredible work to pick up, improve, and grow our communications efforts within the province.

A few stats:

• We have sent a total of 12 emails, including ad-hoc mailings such as obituaries and Br. John's talks.
• During the past 12 months, we netted 121 new subscribers, bringing the newsletter from 292 to 420.
• We have moved from a 64% open rate to a 75% open rate.
• Submission forms and archives are now available online, streamlining the communications process beyond just the email arriving in your inbox.
• From one person doing everything, we now have a team of five, which is how all this gets pulled off!

If you see them, please say thank you to Gwen, Renee, Mary, and Mary Beth for all their hard work over the past year. We have some good things planned for you in 2023, including a few special issues (because yours truly is an overachiever. But also, there is so much we want to share with you!) More than anything else, thank you for reading, for writing articles and contributing content, and for sharing this resource with others!

Have a blessed Holy Week and Easter!

— Mrs. Rebecca W. Martin, OP

editor@layopcentral.org

Please reach out to me any time with contributions, ideas, questions, comments, or corrections!

Committee Updates Due

May 1, 2023

Provincial committee chairs, please submit your updates to the Editor by May 1, 2023.

Submission Call: Summer Veritas

June 1, 2023

The theme for June's issue of Veritas will be "Dominican Saints and the Eucharist." Please submit articles through the website, or email directly to editor@layopcentral.com.

Third Wednesday Lay Dominican Rosary Call

All Lay Dominicans are invited to attend a monthly Dominican rosary via Zoom, hosted by Queen of the Holy Rosary Fraternity in St. Louis, Missouri. We will be asking for prayer intentions prior to the rosary, and you can also use the chat to share your intentions. We are honored to pray with you and for you. Please contact stldominicanlaity@gmail.com with any questions.

The Zoom Dominican Rosary will be hosted on the third Wednesday of each month at 7:00 PM Central Time: April 19, May 17, June 21, July 19, August 16, September 20, October 18, November 15, December 20.

Zoom link here

(Note: This is the updated link, corrected from the previous issue of Veritas.)

Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage

September 30, 2023 

The Dominican Rosary Pilgrimage is a full-day event celebrating the Rosary at the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, DC. It will take place on September 30, 2023, the Vigil of Rosary Sunday, hosted by the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph. This event will include conferences on the Rosary preached by the friars, several hours of Eucharistic Adoration and confessions, recitation of the Rosary and Mass in the Upper Church, and a Eucharistic procession.

The pilgrimage starts (spiritually) with a 9-month novena beginning January 30, 2023. Prayer cards will be distributed to all interested Dominican provinces, including the Rosary Confraternity charters, the Dominican nuns, the Dominican sisters, and Dominican Laity.

The website, rosarypilgrimage.org will include a promotion video, monthly updates, the novena prayer, and individual people or parishes can use the website to request prayer cards to be mailed to them. Social media posts on @DominicanRosary can be easily shared on any social media platform.

Please pray for the evangelical fruitfulness of this event and help promote it to everyone you know for the glory of God and the salvation of souls through increased devotion to the Holy Rosary!

Mrs. Marilyn Ann Pipkin, OP, a member of Blessed Mary, Mother of Dominic Fraternity in Cedaredge, CO, passed away on February 25, 2023. In your charity, pray for the repose of her soul and for the comfort of her family and fraternity. (Obituary)

Received into the Order: October 21, 2017

Temporary Profession: September 22, 2018

Perpetual Profession: August 8, 2021

Summary from General Chapter 2022

Mrs. Rachel Meyer, OP (LOS)

The General Chapter met last summer in Tultenango, Mexico. Their official document is not entirely in English yet, but I can tell you that the Laity and the Dominican family received a strong emphasis in the current priorities of the Order. I would like to summarize for you what specifically pertains to the Laity; there is a lot of other content of general interest to the Order, including to us.

In the words of St. Peter, “always be ready to give a reason for the hope that is in you,” particularly to our secular society, to fallen-away Catholics and to those who have never been Christian. We can reach these people; priests mostly cannot. Focus on the most effective kind of preaching: testimony, a life of deep faith and hope. If we do need faith formation about something in particular, we should ask the Provincial Promoter to find friars to provide it.

Families today must face gender theory, social engineering, abortion, euthanasia, and the modern crises of marriage and the family. We should include this in our formation and our preaching.

There is a lot of commonality between a Lay Dominican and the description of the instituted lector, acolyte, and catechist put forward by Pope Francis. We might consider applying for these if they fit our own charism and apostolate.

The Chapter suggests forming “preaching teams” of friars, members of the priestly fraternity, sisters, and laity in the province, a committee of members of the different branches to plan our collaborative efforts, and a joint team for promoting vocations to all branches. Finally, the Chapter admonishes the Priors Provincial to appoint a spiritual assistant to every fraternity in accordance with our Rule.

You can read the document here. See pages 60–63 and 76–78.

Meeting of St. Francis and St. Dominic (Fra Angelico)

Advent Day of Reflection

River Forest, Illinois

Dr. John J. Planek, OP (OAK)

On December 10, 2022, the Archbishop Fenwick, St. Vincent, and St. Pius Lay Dominican Fraternities and friends came together in community for an Advent Day of Reflection held at Fenwick High School’s Dominican University Campus, which at one time served as the Dominican House of Studies in River Forest, Illinois.

The day was composed of reflections led by Br. John Steilberg, OP, on the Immaculate Conception and John the Baptist, a voice crying out, and John the Baptist, the messenger. The Rosary and Daytime Prayer were recited. The life of Antonio Montesino, OP, and the sermon he delivered in 1511, was detailed as it related to the effect it had on the Dominican order in that region. Fr. Ed Shea, OFM, led reflections on the themes of “Where are you in your Advent journey?” and “What do you want from Advent?”  

The day ended with confessions and a community Mass for all assembled.

Praising — and Preaching — the Paschal Victim

Sr. Peter Thomas Burson, OP (ANN)

One of my favorite chants of the liturgical year is the Victimae paschali laudes, the sequence for Easter Sunday. A triumphant proclamation of Christ’s victory over death, it is full of short phrases which manage to contain marvelously potent words and tight rhymes even in their sparseness. Mors et vita duello / conflixere mirando: “Death and life confronted each other in a prodigious battle.” This is no pious sentimentality—on Easter morn, the Church is in the mood for the language of epic warfare, for that is truly what Christ has won!

Almost half of this sequence consists of a dialogue with Mary Magdalene. The singer, speaking for the disciples (but in the voice of us all), addresses here: “Tell us, Mary, what did you see upon the way?” And Mary, a patroness of our Order because she was the apostle to the Apostles, the first to preach the Risen Christ, gives her testimony: “I saw the sepulchre of the living Christ; I saw the glory of the Risen One. I saw the angels, his witnesses, the shroud and the garments. Christ, my Hope, is risen; he will go before his own into Galilee.” It is a witness rooted in observed fact and brimming with hope.

In fact, hope is not just what Mary has, but Who she has seen: Christus spes mea, “Christ, my Hope.” Other beautiful titles for Christ equally worthy of meditation fill the sequence: the living Christ, the innocent Christ, the Prince of Life, the Paschal Victim, the Lamb, the Risen One, the Victorious King.

Is it any surprise, then, that our Order’s first martyr went knowingly to his death with this chant on his lips? So we are told in the accounts of St. Peter of Verona’s martyrdom: “While they were traveling…he began to sing with a loud voice (which was not his custom) the sequence Victimae paschali laudes.” One account adds the detail — delight of every curmudgeonly musician’s heart — that another brother sang along but that Peter asked a third brother, apparently lacking in pitch, to hold his tongue! “Brother Conrad,” as the account names the hapless harmonizer, became a staple joke in my novitiate.

This Easter, as we celebrate the One “who died, [and] now lives and reigns,” let’s join our voices to the confident testimony of Mary Magdalene, to the joyful courage of Peter Martyr, and to the countless other Dominican saints who have sung this chant before us—for the Risen Christ is who we preach, Christ, who is our hope.

For the text and a literal translation of the sequence, click here.  

Bonus: The best proclamation of this that I’ve ever seen. We could learn something from him about how to really preach the good news!

Catholicism 101

MarySue Schwab (BLO)

The Fraternity of Mary, Queen of the Most Holy Rosary has been called to a unique apostolate at St. Paul Catholic Center in Bloomington, Indiana. 

St. Paul is a Newman Center located in the middle of Indiana University. The Dominican Friars at St. Paul Center minister to students as well as parishioners. When the Dominican Laity were looking for a group apostolate, Fr. Patrick Hyde, OP, asked our fraternity to assist with the parish RCIA/Catholicism 101. 

An estimated 18 to 26 adults, primarily students, attended the program. Some students wished to be confirmed, while others wished to receive all the sacraments of initiation. The Dominican Laity participate in weekly class group discussions and even volunteer to be sponsors for the candidates and catechumens. 

It is interesting how some of the new people seeking to be Dominican Laity are already serving in other parishes in this very apostolate.  

Our apostolate is the active building up of our faith community and the Church. It is nice to see the students on a weekly basis and pray with them and know that when they leave St. Paul, they will take their faith with them. We are all energized by this knowledge and bring this to our bi-monthly group meetings.

Lay Dominicans Are Still the Order of Penance

Mr. Tom Rohn, OP (CAR)

Recently, one of my Dominican sisters asked for suggestions on how to explain what a “Lay Dominican” was in a short sentence (fifteen words or fewer). When I realized how hard it was for me to give such an explanation, I looked for inspiration in our rules, past and present. I think I have an answer, but I think it requires some background as to why I chose the sentence I did. 

So, background first. Traditionally, within the Family founded by St. Dominic, there are those who preach (the “first order” of friars), those who pray (the “second order” of cloistered nuns), and those who do penance (the “third order,” which was divided into those who lived in communities and those who lived privately). Obviously, there is overlap between the orders, and each participates secondarily in the charisms of the other two. 

In the late twentieth century, the Dominican Order dropped the traditional “first, second, third” nomenclature in order to avoid the common (but wrong) interpretation that “first” means “most important” and “third” means least important. While this was a useful way of expressing the unity of the Dominican family to the outside world, it also led to the erosion of the connection between Lay Dominicans today and our historical identification as the “Order of Penance.”

Thus, if Pier Giorgio Frassati had been asked what he was, he would have said, “I am a member of the Order of Penance.” I think this penitential lens is the best way to view Frassati’s famous acts of charity, such as the giving of train fare to others and then riding his bike where he needed to go. Charity, to be sure, and almsgiving, but almsgiving at real cost—he didn’t give from what was superfluous, he gave what was necessary and then paid the additional cost in his own time and sweat.

In a sense, Lay Dominicans are unique among the Dominican family in that we can offer a “widow’s mite” of penance. The friars, nuns, and apostolic sisters have all ordered their lives toward their responsibilities to prayer, preaching, and apostolate. For Lay Dominicans, on the other hand, our lives are ordered toward our families. For us, an hour spent in prayer or with the Blessed Sacrament must either be sacrificed from time with our family or jobs, or must be carved out of sleep or relaxation time. In this sense, like Frassati and the train fare, what we give can come at a relatively higher price to ourselves than the same amount given by someone without the same responsibilities that we have.

In this vein, I propose, much as our brother Yves (Cardinal) Congar, OP, once did in a different context, a ressourcement of our original rule and its emphasis on the centrality of penance to our mission. Perhaps re-reading it and trying to (gradually) implement some of its suggestions into our lives would help us to more clearly define our place in the Dominican Order and in the Church. It is easy to picture a conversation that starts with “Why aren’t you eating meat today? It’s Wednesday, not Friday” that becomes a perfect opportunity to explain, “Oh, I’m a Lay Dominican. We’re also called the ‘Order of Penance,’ and this is an extra penance I do as a sacrifice for the souls of the dead.”

And, if asked to give a simple definition of “Lay Dominican,” I could respond, “Lay Dominicans are lay members of the Dominican Order who preach the Gospel through penance.”

Presidents — Promotional Materials

A trifold brochure and poster describing the Lay Dominican vocation, and holy cards of Saint Dominic and Saint Catherine are available on Sharepoint for you to print for your community’s vocational efforts. Presidents only, please follow this link. If you cannot sign in, please contact Joey Odell, 3opadmin@layopcentral.org.

Help Needed

Webmaster — The Webmaster will be a volunteer position on the Communications Committee reporting to the Editor, with the job of updating, maintaining, and improving the provincial website. The Webmaster will interface with the tech admin and other committees as needed. Wordpress or similar experience required. (Currently, there isn’t too much to do, but we need someone to run point on managing the website because Yours Truly can’t manage that too. — R.W.M.) If you are interested in this position, please email editor@layopcentral.org.