St. Dominic of Guzman
In the Vitae Fratrum we read: St. Dominic felt an extraordinary compassion for sinners. When he approached a village or a town, as soon he saw them from afar, thinking of the miseries and the sins they committed, he would burst into tears, Dominic was so full of zeal for all souls, he would extend his charity and his compassion not only to the faithful, but also to the infidels and pagans, and even to the damned in hell, whose fate made him cry.
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The Father'is face
The mercy and compassion have been one of the most characteristic features of the life and work of St. Dominic, in the early years of his life, in which " He drank the streams of Sacred Scripture," his sweetness and affability became a channel which flowed the loving care of God, the Father of mercies, to every man. In Palencia he was forced to sell his books, priceless heritage, to save his brothers from starvation. On an another occasion, he did not hesitate to give his life to rescue a man who fell into the hands of the Saracens.
St. Dominic, however, did not live mercy only as a requirement of justice, but as a profound experience of salvation. He looked at the face of the Father, and found the source of every gift, and there he found an original plan, an extraordinary and crazy project of love willed by God for all mankind.
He caught the profound dignity that the Heavenly Father had given him. He was the beloved son in Christ, and as the elected of the Father, he was filled with good things, blessed with the gift of grace, so, as the son of the God of Love, he could fulfill his mission and achieve his personal plan of salvation for the humanity entrusted to him. This was the gift that the Spirit gave him. Hence, he wept, for sinners and heretics, because they had both failed the goal of their lives, both had not caught the meaning of their existence.
St. Dominic became the son of the Father, rich in mercy, who could not help wanting the gift of salvation for every man. He, once, spent a whole night with a heretic innkeeper, because devoured by the "passion" of love like the Heavenly Father has for every creature.
Dominic does not speak of God's love because he wants to proselytize or because he believes it is simply a good theory for the life of every man; he knows very well what is at stake, the heart of human existence and the happiness of man. The Father that he announces is not only a provident manager of the mechanisms of the world, but a tender guardian of the existence of every person. The Father does not just give rewards for some act of kindness, but a God from the "heart" of a loving mother who watches over of every child.
St. Dominic captures the heart of the mystery of the mercy of God, an ineffable mystery in which, the more we give ourselves the more we discover, the more we understand the more we lose ourselves, to find ourselves calm and serene as weaned children in the arms of their mothers.
St. Dominic cries when he celebrates the Eucharist, the simplest and most wonderful love of the Father for humanity. The bread and wine become the sacrament through which the "silence", the Father's eternal Word becomes the permanent gift of the Son. It is the mystery of salvation in which every man is united to Christ in a wonderful way and he created in Him the Son of the Father. In the Eucharist, the Father wants all heirs of the inexhaustible source of love that He pours on the creation and eternity in the hearts of everyone.
St. Dominic responds to this plan of salvation with his "here I am", with his constant contemplating of the wonders that the Father accomplishes, and tirelessly runs to proclaim to all men the truth of only one Word: God is Love.
Amen.
