Pictures of Rosary Sunday in London

This past Sunday, the Dominican church in London, which is jointly dedicated to the Order’s founder and Our Lady of the Rosary, celebrated the external solemnity of the feast of the Most Holy Rosary with His Eminence Vincent Cardinal Nichols, the archbishop of Westminster. (The Dominicans first established a presence in England in 1221, and so celebrate the eighth centenary of their English province this year.) Our long-time contributor and photographer extraordinaire, Fr Lawrence Lew OP, who is also the church’s rector and prior of the community that serves it, kindly shared with us these photos of the Mass, and some other recent goings-on. Many of these photos were sent in by members of the congregation at the Rosary Shrine.

The shrine has 14 side-chapels, each one dedicated to a mystery of the Rosary. The Joyful mysteries and the first two Sorrowful ones run down the church’s left side-aisle, from near the main sanctuary toward the back; the latter three Sorrowful and first four Glorious go from the back up the right side-aisle. The fifth Glorious Mystery, the Coronation of the Virgin, is commemorated in the main apse around the high altar, which has recently been restored and re-gilded. The church also has a separate Lady Chapel with a Rosary Altar in the right transept, at which the Virgin Mary is also honored with the title “Seat of Wisdom”, in reference to the Dominican vocation to scholarship and teaching.

Decorations of the main sanctuary. 

A nice tribute to the medieval heritage of the Dominican Order; lecterns decorated with eagles in this fashion were so common in the Middle Ages that the rubrics of medieval liturgical books often refer to them simply as an “aquila.”

This statue of Our Lady of the Rosary of Manaoag, one of the main devotional statues of the Philippines, is carried in the procession after the Mass. It was a gift from the Basilica of Manaoag, and it is believed to be the only authorized replica statue outside the Philippines. The friars are also holding a candlelit procession through the church every Saturday evening at 7pm this month; pictures of the first procession are seen below.

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The 800th Anniversary of the Founding of the Dominicans

Many older editions of the Missal and Breviary contain in the supplement “for certain places” a feast called “The Patronage of the Virgin Mary”, usually assigned to the second Sunday of November. Liturgically, one might almost describe it as a “generic” feast, since it has no proper texts for either the Mass or the Office. Cardinal Prosper Lambertini, the future Pope Benedict XIV, noted in his treatise on the feasts of Our Lord and Our Lady that it was instituted in the Spanish Empire in 1679, and adopted in the Pontifical State by Pope Benedict XIII (1724-30). By the later 19th century, it had been added to the calendars of a number of religious orders, including the Dominicans and Discalced Carmelites.

After Pope St Pius X’s reform of the Breviary Psalter, the calendars of the religious orders were relieved of a number of feasts perceived for one reason or another as superfluous, and the feast of Our Lady’s Patronage was often among them. It is included in one of my copies of the Missal, printed by Desclée in 1913, but missing from their 1941 edition. It was removed from the calendar of the Discalced Carmelites, certainly because the idea of it was already “covered”, so to speak, by the feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel, which they celebrated with an octave at the same degree of solemnity as Epiphany and Corpus Christi.

The Dominicans, however, kept it, and fixed it to December 22nd, the day on which their Order was canonically approved by Pope Honorius III in 1216. They also maintained a proper Collect for the feast, which refers to the institution of the Order as follows.

Deus, qui sub beatissimæ virginis Mariæ singulari patrocinio Ordinem Prædicatorum ad animarum salutem institui, ejusque perpetuis beneficiis cumulari voluisti: præsta supplicibus tuis, ut cujus hodie commemorationem colimus, illius protecti auxiliis ad cælestem gloriam perducamur. Per...

O God, who willed that Order of Preachers be instituted for the salvation of souls, under the special protection of the most blessed Virgin Mary, and be increased by Her constant benefits: grant to Thy suppliants that we may be led to the glory of heaven, protected by aid of Her whose commemoration we keep today. Through Our Lord...

Pope Honorius III Approves the Rule of St Dominic, by Leandro Bassano; from the Dominican church of Ss John and Paul in Venice. (Click to enlarge)

In the 1960 reform of the Dominican Missal and Breviary, which was exceedingly careless about the history and traditions of the Order, the feast was reduced to a mere commemoration at Lauds, and in the Mass of the feria of Advent. This defect and a great many others like it have been remedied in the Dominican calendar of the Novus Ordo, on which “the feast of the Patronage of the Blessed Virgin Mary over the Order of Preachers” is now assigned to May 8th.

This means, of course, that today is the 800th anniversary of the founding of the Order, and we should take the occasion to thank God for the many benefits which have accrued to the Church from the Order of Preachers over so many centuries, and pray that it may always flourish.

The current Dominican Jubilee began in a broad sense in 2006, with the 800th anniversary of the foundation of their very first convent in Prouille in 1206. It now ends 10 years later with a commemoration of the formal founding of the friars. Since the original bull of Pope Honorius was confirmed by a second bull on January 21 of 1227, there will be a closing Mass on that date this coming year, celebrated by the Pope at the Basilica of St John Lateran, the cathedral of Rome.

Dominican Rite Masses in Ohio for the Order’s 800th Anniversary Celebrations

To commemorate the 800th anniversary of the Dominican Order, St Dominic’s Church in Youngstown, Ohio, will celebrate a special series of Masses in the traditional Dominican rite.

July 1: Feast of the Precious Blood (Low Mass)
July 22: Feast of Mary Magdalene (Sung Mass)
August 19: Votive Mass of St. Dominic (Solemn High Mass)

There will be lessons by the friars explaining the history and the significance of the rite before each Mass, beginning at 6:30 p.m., with the Mass itself 7:15 p.m. For more information, see the poster below, and visit the parish’s website, www.saintdominic.org.

“Aquinas, Liturgy, Prayer” Lecture to Celebrate Dominican Jubilee - Feb. 1

Celebrating the 800th anniversary of the Order of Preachers, the Theology/Philosophy Department at Caldwell University will continue its Sister Maura Campbell, O.P., Lecture Series on Feb. 1 with a talk on St. Thomas Aquinas.

Father Innocent Smith, O.P., of St. Vincent Ferrer Priory in New York City will speak on “Aquinas, Liturgy, Prayer” 4 to 5 p.m. in the Alumni Theatre. Father Smith, O.P., a Dominican friar of the Province of St. Joseph, serves as parochial vicar at the Parish of St. Vincent Ferrer and St. Catherine of Siena on the Upper East Side of Manhattan. (We have featured his work and liturgical research here on NLM.)

He will speak about how St. Thomas Aquinas, one of the most influential theologians in the history of the Catholic Church, was deeply influenced by his life of communal prayer in the Dominican order. He will explore the connection between Thomas’s prayer life and his theological writing, drawing on the rich resources offered throughout the “Summa Theologiae” and the saint’s other writings. The talk will draw from Father Smith’s research for his licentiate of sacred theology thesis “In Collecta Dicitur: The Oration as a Theological Authority for Thomas Aquinas” for which he received the 2015 Circolo San Tommaso d’Aquino Veritas et Amor thesis prize.

Father Smith studied music and philosophy at the University of Notre Dame before entering the Order of Preachers in 2008. He studied theology at the Dominican House of Studies in Washington, D.C., and was ordained to the priesthood in May 2015.

The lecture series will continue on Tuesday, April 12, when Sister Judith Miryam Boneski, O.P., will present on “Dominic’s First Daughters: In the Heart of the Holy Preaching.” Sister is director of advancement at the Monastery of Our Lady of the Rosary in Summit, New Jersey, and is a Caldwell College alumna. The lecture will be held from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Student Center Gym.

The lecture series is named after Sister Maura, who was a Sister of St. Dominic of Caldwell. She was a theologian, philosopher, professor, researcher and national leader in education whose scholarship and teaching spanned 50 years. For further information, call 973-618-3931.

Caldwell University is a private, Catholic coed four-year university with a strong liberal arts core curriculum that enhances critical thinking and analytical reasoning. Caldwell offers 25 undergraduate and 30 graduate programs, including doctoral, master’s, certificate and certification programs, as well as online and distance learning options that prepare students for today’s global marketplace. The university has 15 NCAA Division II athletic teams and numerous clubs, fraternities, sororities and activities. It is located on a beautiful 70-acre campus in Caldwell, New Jersey. Caldwell was founded by the Sisters of Saint Dominic of Caldwell. Its core values of respect, integrity, community and excellence influence academic and campus life. (For more information about Caldwell University, visit caldwell.edu. Follow the university on Twitter @CaldwellUniv, on Facebook at www.facebook.com/caldwelluniversity, and on Instagram at www.instagram.com/caldwelluniversity.)

EF Pilgrimage to Bologna for Dominican Jubilee

To celebrate the Jubilee of eight-hundred years from the establishment of the Order of the Preachers (November 7, 2015 - January 21, 2017), on December 7, 2015, a pilgrimage to the Ark of Saint Dominic will take place in Bologna, culminating with a Holy Mass sung in the Dominican rite. The event is preceded by a conference on Dominican rite given by Fr. Riccardo Aimone Barile OP, Prior of the Convento Patriarcale in Bologna, and followed by a reception.

The pilgrimage is first of all a time of prayer and thanksgiving to God for having given the Church the Holy Father Dominic, founder of the Order of the Preachers. It is also an opportunity for the study and promotion of the rite that for seven hundred and fifty-years characterized the liturgical life of the Order, and which since 2007, thanks to the Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum of Pope Benedict XVI and the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae of the Pontificial Commission Ecclesia Dei, may again be celebrated and promoted without any limit in the Church and in the Dominican Order.

Also, as Fr Thompson has noted both here and at Dominican Liturgy, a special plenary indulgence has been proclaimed for the various events of the Dominican Jubilee.