The Holy Preaching 1. The Eight evil thoughts: Introducing the Mental Scaffold
by Sr Rose Rolling o.p.
What is the Holy Preaching?
The first community that St Dominic set up in the newly formed Order of Preachers was not of itinerant friars but of enclosed nuns. He gave this first community the rather affectionate name of the Holy Preaching of Prouille, Prouille being the village in France where the monastery was located. This community lived in the middle of a spiritual wasteland, at a time of schism inside the church and great social division outside it. But this reality did not faze St Dominic, indeed, it was precisely in this environment that he saw the need for a community which would witness to the beauty and truth of Christ in both word and deed.
The Holy Preaching was, if you like, St Dominic’s answer to the very contemporary ecclesial question of synodality. Dominic recognised that our preaching to the non-Christian world must be founded on how we as Christians love each other. There are countless ways of preaching, but love is
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