On September 22, 1217, 800 years ago today, legend has it that seven Dominican friars entered Paris for the first time, together with their brother friars in Bologna, Italy, to begin teaching at the university there. The Dominicans were founded by St. Dominic de Guzman the previous year as a mendicant order (support themselves by begging) who would focus on preaching, teaching, and correcting heresy. The Dominicans have for centuries provided some of the church's most brilliant theologians from St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Catherine of Siena in the middle ages to Yves Congar and Marie-Dominique Chenu at the Second Vatican Council.
“Sicut enim maius est illuminare quam lucere solum, ita maius est contemplata aliis tradere quam solum contemplari.”
“Just as it is better to illuminate than merely to shine, so to pass on what one has contemplated is better than merely to contemplate”
