The Monthly Note
October 2008
From Dominic to Carlos
by Fr. Jacques Sylvestre, OP
In the «Saint-Jude Oratory», the conventual church of St Albert the Great offers to the devotional passer-by the Rosary group: Dominic and Catherine of Sienna receiving the Rosary from the Virgin Mary.
On September morning, a Dominican brother, kneeling before the groups, seems to be one with these holy persons: the Master of the Order, the Superior General of the Dominicans. Visiting the Canadian Province, Carlos Aspiroz Costa, a very unpretentious man, more imposing by his size than his title, piously touches the Rosary that he wears on his belt like all Dominicans faithful to tradition.
After his predecessors, the Irishman Damian Byrne and the Englishman Timothy Radcliffe, it is he, Carlos Costa, Argentinian, that the Dominicans have, by electing him at the General Chapter of Providence, USA, in 2001, entrusted the future of the Order and the lives of our brothers and sisters: 7 to 8000 brothers across the world in over 50 provinces, that he has to visit in his 9 years of generalship. On this morning, in this place of prayer, one cannot be troubled by this historical, spiritual and Marian link of descent between Dominic, the Order’s founder and Carlos, the present Master, his 86th successor.
Now located in Outremont, even if in a smaller space, the shrine ofSaint-Jude does not want to separate the Rosary from the patron saint of hopeless cases. On each «Thursday toSaint-Jude», at 2:00Pm, before Mass and homily, a man, a woman presides over the meditation of the Rosary.
Apart from the devotion toSaint-Jude, it feels good to find oneself as in a «public square», in a place so different than our former neighbourhood, a Marian zeal that, through time, became a private devotion and has always been part of the Order of Preachers. Some unforgettable persons have bounded the pages of this long saga, just like the chains of the Rosary: Dominic, Alain de la Roche, Saint Pius V and so many of the Church’s Pastors who have made it a duty, during the month of October, to share with the World the Rosary’s spiritual benefit as well as their own devotion. John XXIII never let a day pass by without saying his Rosary.
October, is truly the time and the place to ask ourselves: where does a simple rosary, a few Aves fit in our spiritual life and in our education of faith? The Rosary, by its mysteries and meditation: the Bible of the simple folk and of the Virgin’s devouts.
Jacques Sylvestre, o.p.
«Rejoice, you who enjoy God's favour! The Lord is with you.» (Lk 1, 28)
