He was so accustomed to genuflecting that, when he was on a journey, whether in a hostel after the toils of the road or on the road itself, while the others were sleeping or resting, he would return to his genuflections as to his own special art and his own personal service. This way of prayer he taught more by the example of his practice than by what he said.
Our Vowed Life
- St. Dominic
- St. Cecilia
Back
- St. Dominic
- Seignadou
- O Lumen
- The Habit
- St. Dominic in Our Prayers
- Fifteen Tuesdays
- Novena to St. Dominic
- Nine Ways of Prayer
After this, St. Dominic, standing before the altar or in the chapter room, would fix his gaze on the crucifix, looking intently at Christ on the cross and kneeling down over and over again, a hundred times perhaps; sometimes he would even spend the whole time from after Compline until midnight getting up and kneeling down again, like the apostle James, and like the leper in the gospel who knelt down and said, ‘Lord, if you will you can make me clean’ (Mark 1:40), and like Stephen who knelt down and cried out with a loud voice, ‘Lord, do not hold this sin against them’ (Acts 7:59). And a great confidence would grow in our holy father Dominic, confidence in God’s mercy for himself and for all sinners, and for the protection of the novices whom he used to send out all over the place to preach to souls. And sometimes he could not contain his voice, but the brethren would hear him saying, ‘To you, Lord, I will cry, do not turn away from me in silence, lest in your silence I become like those who go down into the pit’ (Ps. 27:1), and other such words from sacred scripture.
At other times, however, he spoke in his heart and his voice was not heard at all (1 Sam.1:13), and he would remain quietly on his knees, his mind caught up in wonder, and this sometimes lasted a long time. Sometimes it seemed from the very way he looked that he had penetrated heaven in his mind, and then he would suddenly appear radiant with joy, wiping away the abundant tears running down his face. At such times he would come to be in an intensity of desire, like a thirsty man coming to a spring of water (Ecclus. 26:15), or a traveler at last approaching his own country. Then he would grow more forceful and insistent, and his movements would display great composure and agility as he stood up and knelt down.
He was so accustomed to genuflecting that, when he was on a journey, whether in a hostel after the toils of the road or on the road itself, while the others were sleeping or resting, he would return to his genuflections as to his own special art and his own personal service. This way of prayer he taught more by the example of his practice than by what he said.
