Friday, February 12th, 2010
Daily Archive
“Word to Life” – February 12, 2010
Posted by Fr. Aquinas on 12 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Word to Life
Click below to hear this week’s edition of “Word to Life.”
Joining me on today’s program to discuss the readings for the Sixth Sunday in Ordinary Time were Fr. Gabriel Gillen, OP, parochial vicar of the University Parish of St. Joseph in Greenwich Village, and Br. Ignatius Schweitzer, OP, one of four newly ordained deacons at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, DC.
“Word to Life” airs live every Friday at 1:00 PM on The Catholic Channel, Sirius 159 and XM 117.
Blessed Reginald of Orleans (1180-1220)
Posted by Fr. Aquinas on 12 Feb 2010 | Tagged as: Dominican Saints, Liturgical Feasts
Blessed be the Lord who sent the Mother of Mercy to our brother Reginald
to anoint him for preaching the gospel of peace.
From the Dominican Ordo:
Blessed Reginald was born near Orleans about the year 1180. He became a doctor of law and taught at Paris. On his way to visit the Holy Land he stopped at Rome where he was captivated by Saint Dominic and the ideal of his Order. While there he fell dangerously ill, but was healed through the intervention of the Blessed Virgin Mary. He then received the habit from Saint Dominic, the very habit which Our Lady had shown him. His example and eloquent preaching attracted many young men to the Order, first at Bologna and then at Paris. He died at Paris in 1220 and was buried at Notre Dame des Champs.
The second lesson of today’s Office of Readings is an account of Blessed Reginald’s life written by his friend, Blessed Jordan of Saxony, whose feast we celebrate tomorrow. Writing during his term as the Order’s second Master, Jordan was careful to highlight Reginald’s important role in organizing and strengthening the Order in its infancy. As Jordan explains, grace and nature came together in remarkable ways to bless Brother Reginald, and through him, despite his early death, the lives of all the brethren.
From Jordan of Saxony’s On the Beginnings of the Order of Preachers:
While Master Dominic was in Rome in 1218, Master Reginald, then dean of St. Aignan in Orleans, arrived there, intending to go overseas. He was very highly thought of, a most learned man and a prominent public figure. He had taught canon law in Paris for five years.
On his arrival in Rome, he fell seriously ill, and Master Dominic went to vist him several times, urging him to follow the poverty of Christ and to join his Order. He prevailed upon him to agree, fully and freely, to enter the Order, so much so that he bound himself to it by vow.
So he was rescued from the serious, well-nigh desperate peril of his illness, not without a miracle of divine power. While he was feverish, with a high temperature, the queen of heaven and mother of mercy, the Virgin Mary, came to him visibly and anointed his eyes, ears, nose, mouth, navel, hands, and feet with a healing balm which she had brought wth her, saying as she did so things like, “I anoint your feet with holy oil to make them ready to spread the gospel of peace.” She also showed him the complete habit of the Order.