Dominic and Thomas

The Order of Preachers (a.k.a. Dominicans) is celebrating its 800^th anniversary this year.  In Santo Domingo Church (Quezon City), the Jubilee celebration was launched in November last year by Cardinal Chito Tagle.  I received almost all of my education from the Dominicans – Nursery (a.k.a. Playhouse) to Grade 3: Angelicum School (now College), Grade 6 to 4th year High School: Letran, Manila, and BSc Chemistry: UST. After obtaining my degree, I worked in UST for almost 6 years.  I am also affiliated with the Rosary Confraternity which is also under the Order’s care. My Lola Piling once encouraged me to become a Dominican priest, but unfortunately I do not have a calling to become a Domini canes (hounds of the Lord).

A few months back, I answered a quiz on “Which Dominican Saint Are You Most Like?” (https://churchpop.com/2015/11/08/quiz-which-dominican-saint-are-you-most-like/) . At the end of the quiz, I was expecting that I would be most like St Thomas Aquinas, doctor of the Church and patron of UST, but my answers revealed me to be like St Dominic de Guzman, founder of the Order.  I am happy with that because without St Dominic, there’ll be no Dominican Order and there’ll be no jubilee to celebrate.

For me, both saints were great men of mercy. When Spain experienced a famine, the young Dominic gave away his possessions to feed the hungry. "Would you have me study off these dead skins, when men are dying of hunger?", he asked his fellow students.  As a priest, he preached against the Albigensian heresy and founded an institute for women. This happened about 10 years before he founded the group of Dominican friars. The Order was instituted out of the need for new type of order which will address the spiritual needs of the growing cities at that time through dedication and systematic education and having a more flexible organization than monastic orders or the secular clergy.

As for Thomas, whose feast day we celebrate as of this writing, he was a brilliant teacher, theologian, philosopher, and priest. Credit goes to him for writing Summa Theologica, an instructional guide for theology students, seminarians, and laity alike. He thought of writing this “because  a doctor of Catholic truth ought not only to teach the proficient, but to him pertains also to instruct beginners. As the Apostle says in 1 Corinthians 3: 1–2, as to infants in Christ, I gave you milk to drink, not meat, our proposed intention in this work is to convey those things that pertain to the Christian religion, in a way that is fitting to the instruction of beginners".

Both saints pointed to the Truth – Christ Himself.  No wonder that UST’s motto is Veritas.  I remember Fr Ernesto Arceo, OP (currently Rector of Aquinas University) mentioned in his homily a decade or so ago that if these men were senators in the Philippines during Joseph Estrada's impeachment, they would vote to have the controversial envelope (containing evidence that would allegedly prove Erap's corruption) opened. 

As we pay tribute to these saints and to the men and women comprising the Dominican Order in their Jubilee Year, let’s live AND share the truth. For as St Thomas once said “Better to illuminate than merely to shine, to deliver to others contemplated truths than merely to contemplate”.