"Let us walk faithful to the love we had at first”
(see Revelations 2, 4)
LETTER TO THE WHOLE ORDER
ANNOUNCING THE JUBILEE YEAR FOR THE 800TH ANNIVERSARY
OF THE FOUNDATION OF THE FIRST COMMUNITY OF CONTEMPLATIVE NUNS
Carlos A. Azpiroz Costa, O.P.
Master of the Order
My brothers and sisters:
I send you this letter from the Monastery of Blessed Mary in Prouille, the first monastery of the Order, on
the Feast of Saint Catherine of Siena, our older sister, "into whom, it seems, ‘the whole soul of Dominic
passed (as indeed into Blessed Jordan of Saxony)'".[1]
In our history there are many events that encourage us to renew our faithfulness to our vocation as sons
and daughters of Saint Dominic: "to contemplate and share the fruits of our contemplation".
"The nuns of the Order of Preachers came into being when our holy Father Dominic gathered women
converts to the Catholic faith in the monastery of Blessed Mary of Prouille. These women, free for God
alone, he associated to his ‘holy preaching' by their prayer and penance".[2] Blessed Jordan wrote: "the
Order of Preachers had not yet been founded; it was rather a question of its institution, as Saint Dominic
was still dedicating himself fully to the ministry of preaching ... And so, from the death of the Bishop of
Osma - Diego - until the Lateran Council, approximately ten years passed, during which bro. Dominic was
practically alone in the region".[3]
800 years have now passed since this historic event. As we consider what is, in some way, the first
Dominican community, truly the hidden seed of the Order, analogously we celebrate as well the
theological priority that contemplation holds in our life and mission.
It is truly right and just that we thank God for the gift of our contemplative sisters! They support us in the
path we follow; they participate in a special way in our preaching; they welcome us that we may share the
hopes and joys, the grief and anxieties of our itinerant ministry. As Saint Catherine of Siena did, so they
encourage us to have no fear, to go forth in the highways and byways to meet those who thirst for God;
they compel us to live a passion for Christ and for humanity.
We must live this anniversary with the serene joy of Saint Dominic. God willing, and with the whole of the
Order of Preachers, beginning with the first Sunday of Advent (3 December 2006) and continuing through
the Epiphany in 2008, we will celebrate a Jubilee Year, dedicated to the memory of these 800 years of
our contemplatives. We will live a "novena" of years that will take us to another important event: the 8th
centenary of Pope Honorius III's confirmation of the Order with the Bull Religiosam vitam of 22 December
1216.
We will concentrate our celebration during this Jubilee Year in each and every monastery throughout the
world. The contemplative charism of our nuns is certainly not tied to any one particular site or community.
For this reason, we have not planned any functions, events or ceremonies centred in Prouille.
Nevertheless, as an eloquent sign of the communion with all of the monasteries of the Order, on the first
day of the Jubilee some of the friars of our General Curia will celebrate the Eucharist in monasteries that
the Order considers "true sanctuaries" due to their special connection with the life of Saint Dominic: the
Monastery of Blessed Mary in Prouille (founded in 1206-1207); the Monastery of the Holy Rosary (exSaint Sixtus) in Rome (founded in 1219); the Royal Monastery of Saint Dominic in Madrid (founded in
1218-1219); the Monastery of Saint Dominic in Caleruega (founded in Caleruega in 1270).[4] Each
monastery could organize similar initiatives involving the whole Dominican Family.
To prepare our hearts for this celebration, each monastery will offer its own suggestions and proposals for
events, initiatives and celebrations to help the whole Dominican Family renew our vocation by
concentrating on the riches of the contemplative life, the well-spring of our preaching. The International
Commission of the Nuns will also offer some subsidies to live more intensely this Jubilee Year.
May all of us, the sons and daughters of Saint Dominic, prepare ourselves to make this pilgrimage to our
monasteries joyfully; let us there drink of the fresh simplicity of the "love we had at first", feeling ourselves
at the feet of Jesus, that we may be with Him and listen to Him. Let us live this time with intensity and
grace, sharing with our contemplative communities the joy of their consecration, the fruitfulness of their
silence, the beauty of their liturgy, their special love for the Word.
The Jubilee Year will be an expression of gratitude for our Dominican vocation through which we are
called to Praise, to Bless and to Preach God with the Church, in the Church and for the Church.
The Holy Spirit providentially inspired Saint Dominic de Guzman to lay the foundations of the Order of
Preachers in some way in the life and mission of our contemplatives. We shout Magnificat! for all that the
Lord has done for us through them!
Fraternally in Saint Dominic, from the Monastery of "Blessed Mary" in Prouille, 29 April, the Feast of Saint
Catherine of Siena, 2006.
Bro. Carlos A. Azpiroz Costa OP
Master of the Order
Prot. 50/06/465 Lettere all'Ordine- MO
Note: Attached to this letter, you will find the rescript that - in the name of Pope Benedict XVI - the
Apostolic Penitentiary sent on the occasion of this Jubilee Year. This rescript grants special indulgences
to all of the contemplative monasteries of the Order, to our Basilica of Santa Sabina in Rome and to the
Patriarchal Basilica of Saint Dominic in Bologna.
[1]
Fr. Aniceto Fernández in Analecta S.O.P. 78 (1970) 481; see Mortier, Histoire des maîtres
généraux de l'Ordre des Frères Prêcheurs, I (Paris 1903) 139.
[2]
Liber constitutionum Monialium Ordinis Prædicatorum n. 1, § I.
[3]
Libellus n. 37.
[4]
See ACG Providence 2001 nn. 321-323.
APOSTOLIC PENITENTIARY
Prot. N. 369/05/I
MOST HOLY FATHER,
Carlos Alfonso Azpiroz Costa, Master general of the Order of Friars Preachers, with his Curia, and also in
the name of all the monasteries of contemplative life of the nuns joined from the beginning to the Order of
Preachers by the Holy Patriarch Dominic, earnestly declares profound sentiments of filial devotion and
religious obedience, while informing you and requesting of you what follows.
Our Holy Father Dominic, travelling with Diego de Acebes, bishop of Osma, saw with his own eyes the
great evils that had arisen in France as a result of the Cathar heresy, and this caused him great sorrow.
In order to root out these evils, it was absolutely necessary that there should be steadfast preaching,
suitable for transmitting catholic truth and confirmed by holiness of life. Hence there arose Saint Dominic's
intention to found a religious order that, as its purpose and special vocation, would embrace witnessing to
the catholic faith in this way, not only in France, but in the whole world. However, totally grounded in the
rule of faith, the Holy Patriarch Dominic considered that the ministry of preaching should arise from the
firm root of contemplation. Thus the Holy Patriarch desired that the future Order of Preachers should
spring forth, as if from its own mother, from a community completely dedicated to the contemplative life.
And so it was that in 1206 the monastery of Our Lady of Prouilhe was founded, near the town of
Fanjeaux; therefore next year, 2006, the passing of eight centuries will be celebrated from this beginning.
From a historical perspective, it is the beginning of the Nuns of the Order of Saint Dominic; but from the
perspective of our inmost charism, it is the beginning of the whole Order of Preachers and the spiritual
project of ‘passing on to others the fruits of contemplation' which the Dominican religious family, trusting
in the Lord, has undertaken everywhere.
In order that this auspicious event might be worthily commemorated, and fitting thanks given to Almighty
God, the above-mentioned Petitioner is asking that, in the various churches and oratories of each and
every monastery of the Order of Preachers, in the Roman Basilica of Saint Sabina and the in Patriarchal
Basilica of Saint Dominic at Bologna, from the first Sunday of Advent 2006 until the solemnity of the
Epiphany of the Lord in 2008, special sacred celebrations and various undertakings be piously held. By
means of these it is, of course, particularly proposed that Christ's faithful should zealously foster Faith,
Hope and Charity, reinforce hierarchical communion with the Roman Pontiff and their own Bishop, and
conform their lives with the norm of the Gospel.
Therefore, so that these spiritual fruits may be more perfectly attained, the Most Reverend Petitioner asks
Your Holiness the gift of Indulgences for these same faithful.
And God, etc.
7 October 2005,
Liturgical commemoration of Our Lady of the Rosary.
* * *
The Apostolic Penitentiary, in virtue of the faculties granted it in a most special way by our Most Holy
Father and Lord in Christ, Benedict, by Divine Providence Pope, the sixteenth of that name, freely grants
a plenary Indulgence, which may be gained under the usual conditions of sacramental Confession,
eucharistic Communion and prayer for the intentions of the same Supreme Pontiff, to all Christ's faithful
who, with a mind which is entirely removed from attachment towards any sin whatsoever, piously visit one
of the above-mentioned sacred buildings:
a. on days when the celebrations are solemnly opened and closed, and on solemnities and feast days
noted in the calendar of the Order of Preachers, if they diligently and reverently take part in some sacred
function or pious devotion;
b. on a day chosen by each individual, by reciting the Lord's prayer and the Creed;
c. whenever they travel in a group to one of these sacred buildings by reason of devotion and, in the
same way, piously recite the Lord's prayer and the Creed.
This rescript has effect throughout the whole of the year of commemoration. Anything to the contrary
notwithstanding.
(signed)
James Francis Card. Stafford
Major Penitentiary
(signed)
Gianfranco Girotti, O.F.M.Conv.
Regent