The short answer is: O.P. stands for the ‘Order of Preachers,’ the name of the Dominican Order. But, why are Dominicans called the Order of Preachers? The answer necessitates a look back at history, back at Saint Dominic himself. In 1170, Domingo Félix de Guzmán was...
We had been in France for a week, and I didn’t have any huge realizations about life, just a few very simple ones, a few smoothed shells plucked from the shore of the sea. We climbed up to the town Saint Paul de Vence all of us in a minivan; the full-size van...
We told the story of the Croix du Sicaire in our first post of this Dominican Faith Series. We told it then because it’s inextricable from who Saint Dominic was and who Dominicans are today. In sum, it is this: Saint Dominic was walking the path from Fanjeaux to...
Day Four began with the themes of the previous day: considering truth, how to find it, and how to carry our hearts along in the process. “As Dominicans, we’re asked to get to reality,” Sister Mary O’Driscoll, OP reminded us the day before....
Day three of the Fanjeaux retreat found us staring at a mountain, contemplating truth. In about 1204, a castle was built on the top of the Château de Montségur, which marks one of the last strongholds of the Cathars in Southern France. The castle became a center of...
