We are the Order of Friars Preachers within the Catholic Church where our central concern is that of well-informed preaching of the Good News of Jesus Christ for our day. St. Dominic envisioned the Order as a group of traveling preachers who bring the Gospel anew to anyone open to hearing. With each step through the centuries, the Order has been inviting women and men to consider again the truth of the Gospel and its application for their lives. The Order of Preachers raises up disciples of Our Lord Jesus Christ through the Word proclaimed and the ministry of grace.
All that a friar does is directed toward his preaching. From common life and personal prayer to assiduous study and apostolic ministry; all give substance to the proclamation of the Word. Jesus is the Word; Jesus is the life we live, the prayer we pray, the texts we study and the people with whom we minister. Jesus is the way of the Dominican friar and is found in every dimension of his life.
Throughout the Central Province, we Dominicans find and name Christ’s grace in our parishes, ministering and preaching among God’s people. We name the grace of Christ in our institutions of education where it is taught and proclaimed. The Aquinas Institute of Theology offers a doctoral level degree in preaching. Fenwick High School promotes the adolescent’s call to vocation and discipleship within the Church. Other friars proclaim Christ’s grace through their itinerant preaching, offering of retreats, and operating centers of spiritual growth and renewal. No matter where a Dominican friar finds, names, and proclaims Christ, he does so for the welfare of others and for their salvation.
Such is the movement of grace in and through a Dominican’s heart—fed by the grace of Christ discovered in prayer, community life, ministry and study. It is given freely to others through the heralding of the Good News of Jesus Christ. So, we, as Dominican friars are called by virtue of the Spirit who enlivens the hearts of all people: to contemplate and to give to others the fruits of our contemplation through preaching.
