A “Congress for the Mission of the Order” is the theme of the Congress organized at the Rome’s Pontifical University, the Angelicum, Jan. 17-21, for and by the spiritual family of Saint Dominic, 800 years since its foundation. The Congress will gather some 600 people.
The meeting and the Jubilee will conclude with a Mass presided over by Pope Francis at the Lateran, at 4:00 pm on Saturday, the 21st. The Congress and Mass can be followed through “streaming” here, from Wednesday, January 18 at 2:30 pm.
On the occasion of the Congress, the Master of the Dominican Order, Friar Bruno Cadore met with journalists in the Holy See Press Office on January 17, 2017.
“We decided to open our after-jubilee by involving the Brothers and Sisters of the whole world, to find the answer to two questions: How to make the Gospel today Good News for all, for those who believe and those who do not believe? And secondly, beginning from our experience, how can we offer the Church a specific human and Christian service?” and this to «help the order to open itself to the future,” he explained.
For Friar Franklin Buitrago, the Jubilee’s organizer, it is always about “communicating the Word of God, by an evangelization that is born of the contemplative life, is nourished by a constant dialogue between reason and faith, and is geared to creating an ever greater fraternal communion.”
Friar Vivian Boland, the Master’s Vicar, remarked that the Dominicans’ Jubilee had as its leitmotiv being “preachers of mercy”: he sees there a “Providential correspondence” with the Extraordinary Holy Year desired by Pope Francis: “We have understood better the concrete character of mercy and we have re- appropriated apostolates that we conduct, for instance, teaching in hospitals or in the pastoral.”
The Jubilee opened in Rome’s Basilica of Saint Sabina on the Aventine Hill, headquarters of the Dominicans’ General House, on Saturday, November 7, 2015, with a Mass presided over by Friar Bruno Cadore, in the presence of representatives of different branches of the Dominican spiritual family.
Historical conferences, religious celebrations, and art exhibitions then marked this Jubilee Year.
After the Angelus, on Sunday, November 8, 2015, the Pope greeted the Order of Friar Preachers and thanked them for their service to the Church. ”On this occasion, may the Lord fill you with His blessing,” said Pope Francis. “And thank you, infinitely, for all that you do in and for the Church!”
On August 4, 2016, the Pope received in audience at the Vatican, the participants in the General Chapter of the Dominicans who, from July 16 to August 4, 2016, gathered around Brother Bruno Cadore at Bologna, Italy, where Saint Dominic rests.
“The more we go out to slake others’ thirst, the more we will be preachers of the truth,” Pope Francis reminded them. Genuine preaching calls for “a strong personal union” with God,” he added. Without it, “the preaching might be perfect, motivated, admirable, but it will not touch the heart which is what must change.”
Pope Francis encouraged the Dominicans “to follow with joy the charism that inspired Saint Dominic: “May his example push you to face the future with hope, knowing that God renews everything always and does not disappoint.
