St. Dominic

Today is the Memorial of St. Dominic, founder of the Order of Preachers (or Dominicans). This is another great order that produced such saints as St. Thomas Aquinas...they were known for their preaching and learnedness.

St. Dominic fought tirelessly to defeat the Albigensian heresy that was spreading accross France and Italy. Albigensianism taught that matter was bad and encouraged suicide, abortion, and euthanasia. It was a heresy that really attacked the dignity of the human person. Dominic preached against it, but didn't have a ton of success until he had a vision of the Blessed Mother who told Dominic to preach "her psalter." Mary's psalter, consisting of 15 Our Fathers and 150 Hail Mary's developed into what we call the rosary today. I think it's important to note that if the rosary destroyed Albigensianism, a heresy that attacked the dignity of the human person, how much more valuable should it be to us today in our fight against abortion and other offenses against human life.

...and some inspiration I found at the Priests for Life website:

"When the time comes, as it surely will, when we face that awesome moment, the final judgment, I've often thought, as Fulton Sheen wrote, that it is a terrible moment of loneliness. You have no advocates, you are there alone standing before God -- and a terror will rip your soul like nothing you can imagine. But I really think that those in the pro-life movement will not be alone. I think there'll be a chorus of voices that have never been heard in this world but are heard beautifully and clearly in the next world -- and they will plead for everyone who has been in this movement. They will say to God, 'Spare him, because he loved us!'"

Congressman Henry Hyde

St. Dominic, pray for us!