December 2006 Print

"O light of the Church, doctor of the Truth, preacher of grace..." Eight hundred years ago St. Dominic laid the foundation for an order that would fight heresy by solid doctrine and profound love of God. The south of France was ravaged by heresy, its uneducated inhabitants being easily duped by the false reasoning of the Cathars, or Albigensians, intelligent and eloquent heretics whose error quickly spread through the Catholic world. St. Dominic established himself in Fanjeaux, the citadel of these false preachers. Thanks to St. Dominic and his group of devoted Friars, the Cathars turned from their errors, and the Catholic world knew a period of peace.

Beginnings

Six centuries later, it was the French Revolution that attacked Catholic France. In the wake of this new disaster, four young ladies, with the help of a priest, became the first teaching religious of the Congregation of the Holy Name of Jesus of Toulouse in 1800. By 1885 their number had reached nearly 80 Sisters, and they had established several schools in the south of France where they educated girls. Still, the times were less than ideal for new religious orders in this changed France. The Sisters found the Dominican spirit much like their own, and in an effort to ensure the stability of the Congregation, they made the decision to affiliate themselves with the Domincan Order. They were given the habit, and they began writing new, Dominican Constitions, which were approved by Rome in 1903. They would henceforth be known as the Dominican Teaching Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus of Toulouse.

The Congregation
in the 20th Century

In the beginning of the 20th century, now under the anticlerical Third Republic, the Church in France continued to suffer. Civil persecution, seizure of Church property, laws forbidding the religious to wear the habit, and suppression of teaching congregations left the Sisters in an impossible situation. Faced with the ultimatum to give up teaching or to give up the habit, they sought the counsel of Pope St. Pius X. His reply: "The souls of the children of France are well worth all the heroic sacrifices made on their behalf." Dressed in simple black, the Sisters courageously remained with their childen, waiting for the end of the State's anti-Catholic onslaught.

In the early 1950's, two elite souls acting with great foresight providentially assured the survival of their Congregation. The Mother General and a Dominican Father reformulated their Constitutions; consequently, the Sisters were preserved from subsequent pressure to "update" them.

After the Second Vatican Council, another courageous Mother General saw the modernist changes beginning to threaten the thriving Congregation, and she prevented them as much as she was able from taking root in her communities. However, opposition from the other superiors of the Congregation and opposition from Rome led her to make a definitive decision. In 1975, in defense of the true Faith, she and several Mothers and Sisters left their religious family with one postulant, three books, and no money.

Today there are over 150 Sisters in the Congregation of the Dominican Teaching Sisters of the Holy Name of Jesus of Fanjeaux, established in the very place where St. Dominic's apostolate began. Here his spirit lives and his preaching continues in the form of education which comprises their vocation. In Fanjeaux at the motherhouse the entire Congregation celebrates the feastday of St. Dominic, August 4th, with the ceremonies of the taking of the habit and the profession of vows during a solemn High Mass.

The Dominican Vocation

"What do you ask?"

For the young lady about to ask for the habit, this question represents the culmination of a year-long reflection. She has spent this year as a postulant (postulare, to ask), living among the other Sisters in order to get an authentic picture of their life. She has begun her studies and learned the ways of the house. She has worked with the more experienced Sisters in the classroom, where they guided and directed her in teaching and where she, in turn, will illumine the minds and souls of girls, who are at the heart of her vocation.

"The habit that you are going to put on...represents your desire to renounce marriage and to belong entirely to Jesus Christ in the religious family of St. Dominic for the evangelical work of teaching and education. In your manner of wearing it, you must bear witness to the poverty, purity, humility, and charity of the Gospel."

In this simple admonition, the priest brings before the eyes of the postulant all she is about to take upon herself as she "puts on the new man." With a clarity and strength only she can possess, the Church expresses the source, the means, and the end of the Dominican Order and the Congregation.

If the habit represents renouncement, penance, retreat from the world, it represents even more the charity that incites such a sacrifice and the great union that this charity seeks. For the renouncement of marriage, far from being an end in itself, farther still from renouncing to belong to another, is the guarding of one's heart for Our Lord alone. Union with God in perfect charity for His glory–the first end of her vocation. She leaves the world to join the family of St. Dominic, and enters into a tradition of saints and masters of the spiritual life. Following the firm and sure steps of St. Thomas Aquinas, she makes doctrine the backbone of her spiritual life, for one can love only what one knows. The Dominican strives, therefore, to know God in order to love Him more, to contemplate His perfections, to anchor her interior life in faith, to avoid the darkness of errors and illusions. She leaves the world, the desire of a family of her own, the liberty to do as she pleases, to free her heart as much as possible that she may give it wholly and without reserve to God. In the novitiate she will receive more attentive direction, and will begin to understand more fully what it means to be a religious, a Dominican, a true educator; how to live the evangelical counsels; why the education of young girls is so important. Here her formation seriously begins, and she will come to know more profoundly her place in the religious life and in the Church.

Although the taking of the habit manifests the renouncement of the world, it does not at all imply a renouncement of those living in the world. As the second great commandment follows closely upon the first, true union with God can only result in a deeper union with the desire of His heart: the salvation of souls. The contemplative, through prayer and penance, beseeches God to illumine and sanctify souls. The Teaching Dominican, by a life of both contemplation and action, bestows the light of truth directly on souls, after the great Dominican maxim, "Contemplari et aliis tradere contemplata–to contemplate and to hand on to others the fruit of one's contemplation." In her life the two are never separate, for she is never a religious without being a teacher, nor a teacher without being a religious. Her life is centered upon the Mass, the Divine Office, prayer, and study; yet her time and services revolve around the life of the school. She sanctifies herself that she may sanctify others. She gives up physical motherhood to become a mother of souls. Her great concern is how to establish Christ's reign in souls and how to bring those souls to God. Though it may seem her life is divided in two, the Dominican integrally links contemplation and action, serving Christ present upon the altar and present in souls; never leaving aside her title of spouse of Christ, never ceasing to bring the mercy of truth to her students.

The Teaching Sister's Formation

"Father of heaven, may Thy Son Jesus Christ our Savior and our Spouse deign to make of us all one Host with Him."

The young Sister making her first profession of vows has just finished her novitiate, but her formation is still in progress. Here is where her life as a religious truly begins. She is about to profess obedience to Our Lord, Our Lady, St. Dominic and the superiors of the Congregation for one year. After having made this profession, she will be assigned to one of the schools of the Congregation, where she will put into practice the principles she has acquired during the last three years. She will continue to be formed, to be educated in the spirit of St. Dominic and in the tradition of the Church.

Hers is a vocation of teaching and of education. Everything she gives flows from true culture and faith; culture and faith that she acquires and deepens, according to her capacities, throughout her Dominican life. More than a mere conglomeration of facts, a varnish which gives the appearance of refinement, true knowledge enables the soul to assimilate the principles of truth, beauty, and morality, bestowing light and order upon the realities of life. She understands that the faces before her do not represent mere intellects to be filled, but rather hearts and souls to be formed–hearts and souls eager to receive this knowledge. Because her own life is fortified by doctrine and right philosophy, the Dominican is able to give her students the means with which to order their lives. Knowing that the young girls of today are the women of tomorrow, she arms them against the errors of a world that no longer knows Christian society, that no longer recognizes the beauty of woman's God-given place in society.

The education of girls contributes to the integral formation of the Christian woman by the ensemble of teaching and the life of the school, through prayer and the liturgy, completed by a strong family life at home. The subjects studied in class are chosen and ordered to this formation, all taught in the light of the Faith. In the principal place, therefore, is Catholic Doctrine, where the love of Holy Scripture is fostered, the girls' faith is deepened, and their prayer life is nourished. It is this knowledge that will illuminate all other knowledge. The study of Philosophy then probes the essential questions of human nature and life encountered in the works of great thinkers, in order to resolve them in this supernatural light.

They study literature, both Christian and profane, not only to be able to recognize true literary art and to increase their ability to express themselves accurately and personally, but also to come to a more thorough knowledge of man and, ultimately, to learn to live.

The Sister who teaches Greek and Roman classics presents a majesty of thought and language destined by Providence to become an instrument of the Church. The grandeur, beauty, and natural truth found in these civilizations serve as a base for a culture illumined and completed by grace after the coming of Our Lord. From the writings of St. Thomas based upon those of Aristotle to the use of Latin in the Church's liturgy, ancient thought is the cornerstone of civilization.

As the ancient languages open to the girls the universality of ancient thought, the living languages open to them the literary traditions of different cultures, which give new perspectives to the riches of humanity.

The girls study History not as a string of unrelated events nor as a past disconnected from the present, but as a continual relationship between cause and effect, between man's fidelities and infidelities to grace. By looking at the events of the past, they acquire a sense of natural law, just politics, and love of country, and they see the great heights and depths of which man is capable.

Science looks at God's creation–nature and the forces of nature–in the light of faith. The study of Mathematics encourages abstract thought and logical reasoning, which the girls will apply concretely in other domains.

The Sisters also prepare women who are attentive and ordered, with an eye for what is beautiful and useful, by exposing them to Music, Drawing, Physical Education, and Sewing, using their natural creativity and gifts.

As there is a diversity of subjects and levels, the Sisters bring a diversity of gifts and capabilities to the classroom. But the Dominican does not come ready-made. Through study, through her various experiences with the children, through the advice and examples of the other Sisters, she acquires skills that are enriching both for her and for her students, and may even discover talents that she never knew she possessed. Most importantly, these talents and skills are founded on her love of education, her desire to learn, and her desire to impart that desire to the girls.

A Life in Christ

"Come, spouse of Christ, and receive the crown which the Lord has prepared for you from all eternity."

After five years of temporary vows, the Sister now promises obedience usque ad mortem, until death, and receives a gold ring symbolizing her complete union with Our Lord. In submission to Him and His cross, she prostrates herself in the form of a cross, presenting herself with Him as a sacrifice to God. Her vows recall the last counsel that St. Dominic, on his deathbed, gave to his brothers: "Practice charity, preserve humility, embrace voluntary poverty"–words St. Dominic lived every day of his life. She has achieved the plenitude of the religious life. Although her formation as a Sister is complete, her journey toward perfection continues in the footsteps of St. Dominic, of whom it was said, "He always spoke to God or about God." As St. Dominic preached the reign of God in villages and universities, she will work with all her strength to establish His reign of light and love in the souls of children.

Armed with nothing but faith in Christ and in the Tradition of the Church, St. Dominic left his native Spain to come to the aid of the poor, bringing them the light of truth. Dispersed in six houses in France and one, soon to be two, in the United States,¹ the Sisters, who hail from ten countries, bring an abundance of cultural riches and experiences. Different though they may be from one another, they share the zeal of St. Dominic to labor tirelessly for the good of souls. This common desire allows them to follow the immortal counsel of St. Augustine and "inhabit the House of God in union and in peace, having but one heart and one soul in God." In imitation of St. Dominic's sacrifice, the Dominican gives all that she is and all that she possesses to pass the Truth to others, that what he began may continue, that the flame of charity may always enlighten the world.

 

Interested young ladies may contact:

Mère Générale
St-Dominique du Cammazou
11270 Fanjeaux
FRANCE

¹ Cf. "The Dominican School of St. Anne of Kernabat," The Angelus, August 2004.