Godzdogz

News | Below you can find the reflections preached during our Advent Retreat (17th-23rd December) by each of the student brothers. Read more

By Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P | "Sin, even venial sin, is the only real sadness in life, the only enemy of peace, and the only problem tears can dissolve."  But what then moved our Lord to weep over Jerusalem? To show us the way to a heart that is a true house of prayer. Read more

Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P | Heaven is, in a certain sense, individual for each and every one. Every time we pray, we embrace something of the irreducible uniqueness of our relation to God, the relation that circumscribes the entirety of our being. Prayer cannot be substituted for another task, nor can another undertake the prayer that could only ever be mine. Delegation is simply impossible in the contemplative life. Read more

By Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P | This then is the true heart of the monastic Office: to learn to "pray without ceasing" (1 Thess. 5:17), so that the entire day may become wholly permeated by a ceaseless spirit of prayer. This wonderful function of the Office is one that is especially attractive on account of its universality: all Christians may profitably pray the Divine Office. So, then, let us all strive to take up this Work of God and so run "on the path of God's commandments, [with] hearts overflowing with the inexpressible delight of love".    Read more

The Seven Last Words | From the Friday before Palm Sunday until Holy Saturday, the student brothers offer you a daily meditation on the Seven Last Words from the Cross, to accompany you and help you prepare for the mystery of Easter. Read more

Quodlibets | We pray in the Roman Canon of the Mass: “command that we be delivered from eternal damnation”. A reader asks: why can’t we have been delivered from eternal damnation ab initio? Why couldn’t the damned simply have never been created? Read more

By Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P. | The divine life simply cannot be clung to and possessed as a prize, but must be ceaselessly poured out in love. If we are ready to be "poured out as a libation" (2 Tim. 4:6) and so offer ourselves as  "living sacrifices" (Rom. 12:1), then we become conduits of grace, sanctifying others and are sanctified ourselves in the process. Read more

By Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P. | To borrow from St Gregory Nazianzen, in a turn of phrase much loved by Pope Benedict XVI, the Magi depart no longer relying on a star because they realise it is Christ who sets the orbit of the stars, and their own orbit too. And so it always is with the transcendentals: we are captured by a kind of gravitational attraction, and pulled into a new orbit around nothing other than the Good, the True, and the Beautiful itself, the infinite love of God – for God is love – love concretised and freely offered to us in the birth of Jesus Christ.Giotto's Adoration of the Magi depicts the star as a comet. Not the most astrophysically likely explanation, but it effectively captures the idea of the fleeting nature of the sign that, pointing beyond itself, ultimately gives way to the signified. Read more

Study is a fundamental aspect of Dominican life, not merely as an academic exercise but as a privileged means to deepen our contemplation and sharpen our preaching. One of the mottos of the Order of Preachers is Veritas, ‘truth,’ which reflects our conviction that the search for truth can lead us to God. With term now finished, the student brothers share particularly useful or striking insights gained in the course of their studies. Read more

By Br Daniel Benedict Rowlands, O.P. | All three comings of Christ described by St Bernard seem to be represented in this painting, but especially the intermediate coming of Christ to the individual soul: in the shadowy forest of the human heart, shrouded in the gloom of sin, it remains within our capability to clear a small glade into which Christ may come to dwell. Read more