Here is an English translation of a beautiful article by our brother Felicisimo Martinez which he prepared during a Congress on the V centenary of the preaching of Anton de Montesinos
May the charism of preaching be always alive among us and among the young men and women who share the same grace of serving the church through the preaching of the Word.A DISTANCE OF 500 YEARS.-
The V centenary of the Christopher Columbus death we have celebrated a few years earlier in the celebration of this V Centenary in Avila in a Congress entitled: Historical Responsibility: Questions from the New World for the Old World. We have inaugurated this celebration with a dramatization of the sermon of Montesinos, prepared by the dramatist Juan Mayorga, and presented it at our Monastery of Santo Tomas de Avila where some members of that community originated. The success of the presentation was great. The impact of the questions raised in the Congress was also notable.
A year later, we repeated the theatrical presentation in La Habana (Cuba) with the participation of important personalities of the Cuban cultural world. The resonance here was greater since it reached national level, perhaps due to the important role of the chronicle by Fray Bartolomé de las Casas which enjoys in that country, where even today the denunciations of the sermon of Montesinos is ever present, with the same rabid force they continue to question pertinent question of the New World to the Old World.
Today we come to the moment to celebrate this V centenary, but not looking away from ourselves, but looking within the Dominican family. It is a moment to make a kind of auto criticism, a self examination of the historic memory. In order to underscore with the challenges which present themselves to us in the life and mission of the Order, in this globalized world and in this Latin American continent.
It is our responsability to listen to the questions of that community of Hispaniola Island and their preaching thrown to us the Dominican men and women of the XXI century. I believe that there are two basic questions: One is of a historical character but very illustrative: What type of community produced such a type of preaching? Or what type of preaching produced that type of community? The second one is of a more historical character and ethical: What does that community and that preaching want to show us today and how does it challenge the Dominican Family in this global world and in this Continent?
I am not a historian and I cannot answer about the small details of that community. But what impressed me always was that everything was related with that sermon of Montesinos, because it seems to me a true parable or metaphor of what must be the relation between the Dominican community and Dominican preaching. This is the theme on which I would like to make the reflection, to see where it can illuminate our communities and our preaching.
THE MEMORY OF THE ORIGINS: THE FUNCTIONS OF THE DOMINICAN COMMUNITY ORDERED FOR PREACHING.
If we go back to the foundational project of Dominic, we already find the essential bond between the Dominican community and Dominican preaching. The first thing we ought to bear in mind is that the final ideal of the foundational project of the Order is not the community but preaching. The former is at the service of the latter. But this does not mean that the community does not have any great importance because if the community fails, it is posible that the preaching may also fail, o the latter could not receive the richness of the the Dominican charism. Even so, because the community is at the service of preaching, and not vice versa, the practice of dispensation gives us a wide margin for freedom and flexibility when organizing communities. Because what definitively counts is preaching.
The generic relationship between community and preaching is supposed and we pass to show the basic functions which Dominic attributed to the community in relation with Dominican preaching:
Firstly: To guarantee the permanence of preaching, in such a way that this essential ministry in the Church does not depend on the life, the risk, the humor and the free will of individuals, but is guaranteed by the community. If an individual is absent or desists in the ministry of preaching, the community is there to continue with the said ministry. (Although Montesinos possessed the grace of preaching, it was the community who responded on the permanence of preaching). Frequently the Christian communities complained that some projects of the the religious men and women and of Dominican men and women are too individual or too dependent on the will of the individual who had conceptualized it, in such a way that when the person disappears either by his/her own will or by the decision of the Provincial superior, the Project disappears and the Christian community have the sensation being left hanging or abandoned, or not considered any more. They have the sensation that they are mere objects of experimentation in the hands of the pastoral agents.
Secondly: To support and to sustain the preacher in his ministry. This support includes the cultivation of his evangelizing zeal in the community life, the animation in the exercise of preaching, the moral support in his crisis and discouragements, the community backing when the consequences of preaching requires it. (In this the community of Pedro de Cordoba is an unequalled example). Certainly, the communitarian support does not only guarantee the continuity of preaching, but also the permanence of the preacher in his mission, despite the moments of crisis and discouragements. Naturally, this function requires to previous conditions: in the first place the existence of a Dominican community with all its essential elements; In the second place, that the preacher feels truly part of the same and is integrated into the community life.
Third: To support the ministry of the Word with the testimony of a Gospel life. And the strongest characteristic of a Gospel life is, obviously fraternal or sisterly life: Fraternity or a fraternal love which is described in the Apostolic community of the Acts of the Apostles. This is the first and most efficacious practical proclamation of the Gospel. That is why even those communities cloistered nuns who dedicated their lives in silence are also called “Houses of preaching”. That is why, when the community lacks the witnessing of the Gospel life, the efficacy of preaching is weakened. And if the Dominican community is engulfed in scandal, the evangelizing ministry and the message preached is disaccredited. Paul was careful not to discredit the ministry. In the Dominican community all of us are free and democratic, and we can do whatever we want, but no one has the right to discredit the evangelizing ministry of the brethren and of the community (bitter memories).
These are the three basic functions of the Dominican community in order for the ministry of preaching. But how was this realized by the community of Pedro de Cordoba?
THE COMMUNITY OF PEDRO DE CORDOBA AND DOMINICAN PREACHING.
The Dominican community of Hispaniola Island is above all a parable about the relationship between the Dominican community and Dominican preaching, what Dominican preaching wanted to be in the foundational project and Dominican preaching must be today.
Relying upon the narrative summarized and probably filtered which was made for us by Bartolomé de las Casas in his History of the Indies, we must also affirm that, although the famous sermon the the III Sunday of Advent of 1511 was pronounced by Montesinos, in reality, it is a sermon of the community. It is enough to analyze the implication of the community in the said sermon.
In the beginning of that preaching, the reading of the signs of the times.
The beginning of that history which continued till the preaching of Montesinos was not from a divine inspiration. I was more of a serious reading of the signs of the times (may this anachronism serve it) and a powerful blow of compassion, two characteristics very ancient and at the same time very contemporary in Dominican spirituality.
That intellectualized and conscienticized reading of the signs of the times consists in seeing and listening with all its crude harshness of what was happening.
To see and look upon the signs of the times. The text of Bartolomé de las Casas makes constant reference to this “looking”: “Considering the sad life and harsh captivity whith the natives of this island suffer and how they are fuming when the Spaniards do not care for them, as if they were a little better than the beasts without any use…” (Historia III, 3). “The said religious seeing and looking the many actions done by the Spaniards on the Indians and they do not have care for their bodily and spiritual health…” (III, 3).
To listen to the witnesses and listen to the cries of the victims. For sure those friars heard the direct cries of the victims, but also listened to the witnesses of so much injustice and so much cruelty. The shocking testimony that reach to us through Juan Garcés, who after killing his spouse performed penance in the mountains for three or four years. “This man who they call fray Juan Garcés… showed to the friars particularly the execrable cruelties which he and all others had recorded as ocular witnesses, how these innocent people had suffered, in the wars and in peace, if something of peace can be called for. The friars, shocked in listening to such actions so contrary to humanity and Christian custom, received them greatly and in order to impugn the beginning, the middle and the end of that horrible and novel way of tyrannical injustice…” (III, 3).
Seeing and hearing all these, the friars began to “collate the facts and the law” (III, 3)
In the beginning of Dominican preaching is, thus, to see and hear the signs of the times. On the contrary, preaching falls into emptiness, the Word of God does not respond to any human need. The mere contemplation of the signs of the times acquire all its importance the contemplation of the mystery of salvation. This is the only way in which the law and fact would not be separated. The Gospel is the same for all continents, peoples and cultures, Can our preaching be the same? What does inculturation mean? What does the Christian Gospel which we preach reveal if it does ot we preach the same if it does not illumine any black or obscure hole in the lives of persons and of the peoples?
An essential quality of the prophet is the capacity to see the signs of the times and to listen to the cries of the victims.
At the beginning of that preaching, an exercise of believing compassion:
The contemplation of “that horrible and new way of tyrannical injustice” was not a exercise of academic curiosity or of scientific interest. Neither was it a momentary emotional reaction. That contemplation was generated from an exercise of faith and channeled into an exercise of compassion, in a reactive compassion.
As Las Casas had said, those friars were “spiritual men and friends and very good friends of God” (III, 3). Juan Garcés himself knew of the “odor of holiness which was produced with the arrival of that Order” (III, 3). Here is the key to understand the apostolic zeal of that community, the power of that sermon and the specific identity of Dominican preaching. It is only from faith experience, from the experience of God is a believers’ reading of reality, a believer’s reading of the signs of the times. Here is also the key of the strengths and weaknesses of Dominican preaching. That was a community of the reform, as it was the majority of the first missionary communities of the XVI century.
For I believe that a serious challenge, very serious for Dominican preaching today in order some levels of the experience of God, of the experience of faith, to be both personal and communitarian. This would give himself a preaching that is truly evangelical. What as Humbert of Romans had said, it is not the same to throw a sermon and to preach. And as Fr Damian (Byrne) had said, we should not discount the faith in the Dominican communities. And as it can be heard more frequently now, it is not the same to be a religious and be a believer. It is not about being more piousbut to be more believers in order to become more preachers.
Compassion was present in the origin of that preaching, as it should be in the beginning of all Dominican preaching. “The friars, shocked at listening to the actions so contrary to humanity and Christian custom…, were ablaze with fire and zeal for divine honor, and feeling the injuries against his law and commandments of God.. and feeling tender compassion of the swagger of such a great number of souls, as without anyone complaining or taking into account of their actions, they had perished and each hour they are perishing… ” (III, 3).
Without compassion, preaching becomes a profession which is learned from practicve and exercised with routine. With compassion, preaching is exercised as a vocation, and is realized with passion. Woe is me if I do not preach the Gospel! Of Dominic, the witnesses of the the canonization process said that they had never seen anyone who possessed such zeal for the salvation of souls. Compassion and apostolic zeal or the urgency of preaching always go hand in hand. Today it has been exalted that compassion is a virtue specifically Dominican, we should ask ourselves: Does this reflect the supposed Dominican compassion in the growing zeal with the ministry of preaching? Does this oft high exaggerated Dominican compassion lead us to somewhere? If this does not lead us to somewhere, then there is room to doubt their authenticity.
In the beginning of that preaching, the communitarian deliberation:
Perhaps this is the most peculiar character of that community and of that preaching. And perhaps it may be the most serious challenge for the Dominican Family today: to make our preaching go back to its character which is essentially communitarian, this is more than just preparing the homily in common although this may have its importance. Let us make some observations to this respect.
The preacher was Montesinos, but the preaching was the result of a communitarian deliberation. Montesinos was the mouthpiece of the community, the mouthpiece of the community, the mediator/instrument of a preaching that was essentially communitarian.
Thus Bartolomé de las Casas narrates to us: “The friars, shocked of hearing (such things)…; were ablaze with fire and for divine honor… and tenderly felt compassion… supplicating and entrusting much to God with continencendidos del calor y du prayers, fastings and vigils , so that they could be illumined so as not to commit error in the thing that they are about to do, as such a novel and scandalous affair had been presented to them, they had to be something that would awaken persons who are such a deep and abyssal dream and so insensibly asleep. Finally after having passed through mature and repeated counsel, the decided to preach it in the pulpits publicly and declare the state in which our sinners, which these people posessed and how they oppressed and are killing them in it. And where at the end of their inhumanities and avarice, the reward they are to receive. The most learned of them agreed, by order of the most prudent servant of God, the Father fray Pedro de Cordoba, the Vicar, on the matter that the first sermon should contain, and that all of them should sign their names so that it would seem that it is not only by the one who was to preach it, but it came from the opinion, deliberation and the consent and approval of all. The said Father Vicar imposed upon, ordering by obedience, that the principal preacher among them, after the said Father Vicar, to preach that sermon, and that was Father Fray Anton Montesinos…” (III, 3).
This is an excellent text which should be meditated daily by Dominican communities committed to the ministry of preaching. In it, we find a perfect narrative of which it means the communitarian preparation of preaching, of the homily, of the catechesis, of evangelization; an affair so highly recommended by all our Dominican assemblies but scarcely assumed by the communities.
In this communitarian preparation of that preaching, there are various elements which we should take into account:
1) Prayers, fasts, vigils of the community, supplicating and entrusting much to God so that they would be enlightened in order not be be mistaken in an affair so important as it was the salvation of Spaniards and the Indians. This is an obvious characteristic of that community.
To pray for preaching is to pray, to meditate, to contémplate for a time the signs of the times and the Word of God. The experience of God is not a community affair, it is a personal affair; but the community is the space wherein the brothers and sisters have to cultívate the faith experience, the experience of God. For without this experience, it is absolutely impossible to do Christian preaching.
2) Common deliberation, Counsel, Common reflection over a situation, the moment, the content and form of preaching. This is another characteristic of that community.
Study in the Order is for the sake of preaching, this fact should not be forgotten. Study and the search for the truth is a personal task, but it is also a communitarian task. Study and deliberation carried to the community of Pedro de Cordoba in a double direction: a) to an analysis of reality and the critical condition of the actions of the Spaniards and the passions of the Indians. The Analysis of the facts and and of the rights. Analysis of the reality, of the signs of the times. b) In the second place, study brought them to the search of the holy truth in that concrete situation, to the believer’s analysis of these situations, in order to appropriately announce the Gospel and to prophetically denounce the anti-Gospel situations. The study of the Word of God is actualized and contextualized: What does it say to us today, here and now
It was a community of learned men who came from the halls of Salamanca and Avila. They brought with them great poverty but also a library which was necessary for evangelization. (30 copies of grammar books or the Ars Grammatica, 2 Biblical Concordances, the Works of Saint Augustin, the Decretales, the Summa Clementina, 3 small bibles, the Works of St. Thomas with a Tabula Aurea, the Summa Doctrinale of St. Antoninus, a Summa Angelica, a Catholic vocabulary, and six copies of the Triumph of the Faith…).
It was a community of learned men, as we were told but they were not foreign to the apostolic sensibility; perhaps it was an example of the reconciliation between the figure of the doctor and the missionary, a reconciliation in which we are urged to do so today. It is about a praying community and at the same time a studying community, all for the same of the preaching function. Judging by the writings of Fray Pedro de Cordoba above all in the later writings of Fray Bartolomé de las Casas, perhaps his text book was already the Summa Theologiae. That is why it is a preaching that is so sensible to the problem of justice. Just like Dominic de Guzman and Bishop Diego, when they sent back their retinue to Osma, they were left with the books for praying and for study, the missionaries of the Hispaniola Island, in the midst of their poverty, also carried with them the books for praying and of study. What are the books they possess in their library?
3) And another characteristic of this communitarian deliberation in the exercise that is truly Dominican. The friars interpreted the action of the Spaniards in the key of “blindness”, of “deep and abyssal dream”. This point is very Dominican and must inspire Dominican preaching. There is no need to moralize too much, or to impute all anti-Gospel or anti-human actions as pure and harsh malice or of ill will. Speaking in a Dominican way, it is more certain and more evangelical to impute it to blindness, or the lack of light. (I learned of it first in Venezuela accompanying a group of alchoholics anonymous and later meditating many times the writings of San John). My attention was called in the theme of blindness, which is always present in one and another in the narrative of Bartolomé de las Casas. I repeat that this event is very Dominican and very proper of Dominican preaching.
4) And the end of this communitarian carácter of that preaching was the gesture of signing the sermon by all the members: All signed with their names so that it would be clear that it was not the sermon of him who hqad preached but it was to be the “thought, and the deliberation and consent and approval of all”. (III, 3). The result of all this process is that which Montesinos preached which was not his sermon, but the sermon of all the community. That the message which Montesinos had preached is not his message, but the Gospel message, prayed, studied, discerned by the whole community.
And entrusted the sermon to a friar who had the “grace of preaching”.
Having made the communtiarian preparation of preaching, it was responsibly entrusted to Fray Antonio Montesinos, to give the sermon as he possessed the “grace of preaching”. “The said Father Vicar “imposed” upon him –ordering him to do so in obedience- so that he would preach the sermon, who was the principal preacher after the said Father Vicar, who was called Father fray Anton Montesinos… This Father, fray Anton Montesinos possessed the grace to preach, was very harsh in reprehending vices and above all, in his sermons and words, as it as colorful and efficacious; these made his sermons to bear much fruit. To this man who was the most animated was the first sermon of this matter entrusted, so new for the Spaniards of this island; and the novelty that it was no other than to affirm that to kill these people is more sinful than killing bugs”(III, 3).
This is a gesture of communitary responsibility: to entrust such an important and decisive preaching, without pastoral jealousy to the brother who could produce mosre fruit, for possessing grace of preaching. What was he interested was not the personal or institutional enlightenment, but to take the worthy fruits of conversion in the people.
The gesture of this community brings us to a problem that is very much present in the Dominican origins: preaching is entrusted to those who had received the grace of preaching, the gratia praedicationis. Many had been written and debated on this affair. I shall not return to this point, I only would like to take some conclusions which had been clarified: The expression gratia praedicationis had already appeared in the Primordial Consitututions which is said to have been written by the hand and letter of Dominic. It was entrusted to the General Chapter to discern this charism and invest those preachers to those who posess the grace of grace of preaching. (Were there therefore friar in the Order who did not preach? What do they do in this “Order of Preachers”?). Given the difficulty in the discernment and that some friars presumed and abused for possessing the grace of preaching (Giovanni da Vicenza), The General Chapter of 1249 eliminated the expression in the Constitutions. Nevertheless it continued to exist in the collective conscience this conviction that preaching is a grace, a charism. Humbert of Romans had affirmed it with firmness in his manual on the Instruction of Preachers: Preaching is a profession which cannot be learned as the other art sor professions that are based on study and practice; it is a gift of the Spirit. This does not dispense the preacher to prepare himself conscientiously through study, prayer, preparation of the sermons… in order to exercise his office responsibly. (to carry with oneself a small guide just in case the inspiration of the Holy Spirit does not arrive, as one confirmed charismatic). Aside from this, from the beginning, Dominican preaching does not only require the grace of preaching, but demands to be a preaching of grace.
In entrusting the sermon to Montesinos, who possessed the grace of preaching, it was a gesture of responsibility by that community. It was a manner of strengthening the communitarian character of Dominican preaching.
The Gospel witnessing of the community is the foundation of that form of preaching:
From the origins of the Order, the very community itself has been considered as the first preacher. For it is where the ideals of the Gospel life is put into practice. That is why all Dominican communities are known as domus praedicationis.
This testimonnial support of preaching also took place in the Dominican community of Hispaniola Island. Their preaching is accredited and supported not only the moral conduct of its members–which is not little-, but also and above all for the Gospel life of the whole community. We should not forget that friars pertain to the religious life of the refomr. It was precisely due to the internal reform of the Order which had made the Order to arrive in America at a later date since they were not sent until the reform was assured. This reform had placed all its efforts in two fronts: the discipline and religious observance and the intense study of the sacred truth. As a consequence, the friars of that community were already well equipped to the ministry of preaching.
This Gospel life acredits the preaching of the community is concretized in this case in three outstanding characteristics.
The cultivation of the experience of God. Of this Bartolomé de las Casas tells us that they were “spiritual men and close friends of God”. The natives knew “of the odor of holiness that is produced (in that Order)”, que “lived in the rigor of religion”, who “supplicated and entrusted themselves greatly to God with continued prayers, fastings and vigils” (III, 3). Thus is is about a religious community, not a mere residence. This is about a convent of friars called to be together by the same faith and the same vocation. His preaching was an expression of his faith experience.
Evangelical poverty. Radical poverty was one of the characteristics of the communities of the reform. This character was quite pronounced in the missionary communities of the XVI centuries as we can see in the first communities in America and in in Asia. Of this community, we are told that for example, that they “lived in a straw house”’ and “they lived in great need and rigor of religion” (III, 3); and that “their jewelry were no other than their coarse woolen habits, the blankets which covered them in the night; their beds where some wooden poles placed over some form of a frame, which were called “cadalechos”- a handful of straw; whatever they have to celebrate mass and some booklets, all could be kept in two trunks” (III, 4); having preached the famous sermon, Montesinos and his brethren returned to their straw house, “where by luck, did not have anything to eat except for some vegetable soup without oil, as in sometimes it happened to them” (III, 4); when they decided to send fray Montesinos to court in order to defend the truth of his sermon and his denunciation, “they went about asking for alms from the people in order to defray the cost of the food for his” (III, 6); and they kept fasting from the feast of the Holy Cross till Easter. The testmony of a Gospel life was the source of moral authority for those preachers.
Fraternity. We do not know with certitude wat would be the quality of the life among the brothers in the community. But there are two details which permit uis to affirm that fraternal life formed part of the witnessing which accredited their preaching. In the first place, the historians tell us that fray Antonio Montesinos preahced in the funeral of fray Pedro de Cordoba and used as a motto the well known verse: “Ecce quam bonum et quam iucundum habitare frates in unum”. This is perhaps it evokes at all times a life that is truly fraternal in that community. In the second place, it underscored the consensus and the harmony of all the community in preparation of the famous Advent sermon and the support of the preacher after preaching it. This is fraternity in action or the capacity to form an apostolic team something which we are lacking today. In preparation for the sermon: “They began to talk among themselves of the ugliness and the enormity of the injustice that was never heard before” (III, 3); “and after mature and repeated counsel, they deliberated to it in the pulpits publicly …” (III, 3); “all agreed with the best of good will” (III, 3). Behind the preacher: “Father Vicar answered (to the authorities who complained in the presence of fray Montesinos) what was preached by that priest had been the idea, the will and his consent and of all…” (III, 4); “they discussed their decision (not without much affectionate prayers and tears)… and deliberated that it would also be the same priest, fray Montesinos would go to Castilla, who had preached it…” (III, 6); “(and he went) putting all his confidence in God through the preayers of those who were left there” (III, 6)… These are witnesses of the fraternity that sustains and credits the preaching, for the first preacher is the practice of charity among brothers and sisters.
The tone and the content of that preaching.
What reaching resulted in all this communitarian implicationo? They ought to underscore some very Dominican characteristics of that preaching.
In the first place, the supposition that not all was denounced, even though it may be about sin and very grave sins, the obedience to evil and malice, but it is more about blindness. This blindness and its synomyms, is repeatedly pounded into the narrative of Bartolomé de las Casas. We are not going to detain ourselves in the question in itself if ignorance is culpable or not. But what calls attention is the insistence of the blindness on those who are treating the Indians. This was what they believed while they were preparing the sermon: “they were once again presented anew and the scandalous had be be presented in order to wake up those persons in such a profound and abyssal dream and so insensibly asleep.” (III, 3). Thus all this was was manifested by the preacher in the sermon: They begin taking care of the blindness in which they live and once and repeatedly on the same blindness: “How do you understand this? Do you not feel it? Why are youy in such a profound dream and letargically?” (III, 4). And thus those who came to protest by the sermon interpreted this pertinacy: “And they reached to such blindness which tells them, if they do not do it (to take back what had been preached), to pair themselves with their mallets and embark and return to Spain” (III, 4). The Dominican preaching was directed to the blind, not the malicious or ill-intentioned. Those were sick these were deliquents. That is why Dominican preaching ought this can conversion be guaranteed.
In the second place, if we pause to see the previous reflection of the community and the resume of the sermon which was recorded for us by Bartolomé de las Casas, it is precisely to underscore some points of importance in the tone and the content of the sermon:
That the preacher does not peach in his own name nor in the name of the community, but in the name of Christ. “So that you may be knowledgeable of the gravest sins I have climbed up here, that I am the voice of Christ in the desert in this island” (III, 4). The message is not of the preacher nor does he speak in his own name. In the face of so much injustice the friars are obliged to preach the law of Christ: “Are we not obliged to preach the law of Christ?” (III, 3).
What is on the line here, definitely is the eternal salvation of the Spaniards and the Indians but moreso to those who are culpable that they are for not being evangelized. That is why, the friars felt urged to preach. In preparing the sermon, the community was very clear on this: “After much observation and conferring among themselves, and with much counsel and mature deliberation, they determined that the sermon be preached as a Gospel truth, and a necessary thing for the salvation of all the Spaniards and the indians of this island, whom they see die every day without have more care to them than the animals in the field; of which it was olbligatory by divine precept and by profession which you had made in baptism, first as Christians and later as friars preachers of truth” (III, 4). The preacher “began to speak about the danger of their condemnation…” (III, 4). “This voice tells you ythat all of you are in the state of mortal sin and in it you live and die by the cruelty and tyranny which you apply to these innocent victims… Be certain that in the state you are you can no more be saved than the moors or the Turks who lack and do not want the faith in Jesus Christ.” (III, 4). And in the sermon of the following Sunday, in which the authorities were expecting a retraction, the preacher continued to insist the same thing: “you would have the certainty not to be saved in such a state, that is why remedy themselves with time, making them know that to man of whom they do not recognize, is more than those who walk jumping…” (III, 5). The motivation and ideal of preaching is eminently theological: here comes into play the cause of God which the full realization of his creation, the salvation of His sons and daughters, especially the most vulnerable and the poorest. But precisely, because the cause of God is the cause of human being…. This distinguishes Dominican preaching from whatever form of moral and pious exhortation.
That preaching is essentially linked to the cause of salvation with the cause of justice. And thus the denunciation is concretized in the unheard of injustice that the Spaniards are committing against the Indians. Here is the political and public dimension of the Gospel message. What moved that community to compassion and to preach it was the injustice committed against the Indians. “The religious (seeing the situation) cobraron with a greater spirit to impugne the beginning, middle and end ofd that new way of tyrannical injustice (against the law and the commandements of God)” (III, 3). The questions of the sermon were frontal denunciation of the perpetrated injustices and a challenge to mix the law and fact, Christian faith and a commitment with justice: “You say: “With what the law and with what justice do you possess in imposing such a cruel and horrible servitude on these Indians? With what authority have you to create such detestable wars with these people who were meek and peace-loving in their lands, where with so many of them, neither death nor decimation had ever heard to have happened? How do you have them so oppressed and tired, without giving them food or cure them of their infirmities in due to the excessive work you impose on them, had incurred, and thus they die with you, or better still, you kill them in order to get and acquire gold every day? What concern do you have for those whom you indoctrinate so that they might know their God and Creator, that they may be baptized, hear mass, keep the feasts and the Sunday? These, are they not men? Do they not have rational souls? Are you not obliged to love them you you love yourselves?” (III, 4). The great sin is injustice, it closes the door to salvation. Outside justice, there is no salvation. Outside humanity, there is no salvation. This makes Dominican preaching a prophetic preaching of truth.
These denunciations so brusque are not the political portion of the sermon beside the theologican portion. All these are logical consequences of the Christian faith. These denunciations only underscore the political and public dimensión of the Christian faith. These are the incarnation of faith. It is a faith with actions, and not by the merits of the work but by the dynamics of faith. If preaching does not go anywhere, devoid of any practical consequences, there is no conversión of looking (right) and of action (deed), this is not Christian preaching although it may be speaking of sublime mysteries of the Christian doctrine, but it is not the complete Christian preaching.
And of this public and political dimensión of preaching we ought to underscore that the community did not only made a verbal denunciation in the sermon, but made a consequent compromiso in order to defense the cause once more which they considered to be evangelical the following Sunday despite the pressures from the authority, and to defend the cause of the indians before the Court against the lies and the abuse of the conquerors.
And the unrestricted support of the community to the preacher and to the preached message.
Let us now begin by concluding this analysis.
As it was previsible, the authorities in the island were furious, incited the populace and went to the convent in protest. Fray Pedro de Cordoba, in the name of the community, assumed once again the responsibility of what was preached and only accede that fray Montesinos would preach the following Sunday in order to repeat the same denunciations. A preaching is communitarian when the community assumes the consequences of preaching till the end.
In the second sermon, fray Montesinos and the community maintained the same denunciations. It is not important they wer accuse of preaching “something so new and prejudicial, in disservice of the king and harmful all the dwellers of that city and of all the island” (III, 4). And neither the consequences of that preaching may may in the community was of any importance. The civil authorities and even the Prior Provincial himself, ill informed had threatened them that they be sent back to Spain.
The support to the preacher and the message went furtehr. If the civil authorities ordered fray Alonso del Espinal to make an erronerous report to the King, the Dominicans decided to send none other than Fray Anton de Montesinos himself to infom the Court of the truth of the facts and as a consequence the truth of the sermon…. It cost them to ask for alms to pay for the trip, it cost the friar to enter into the chambers of the king… …, but at the end, he was able to have it and it was worth all the trouble. All this had to come to an end which is the public dimension of the Christian faith; to lead us to the end which is the communitarian support of preching that is authentically Christian whoever of the brothers who would preach. This makes preaching more communitarian and more Dominican. (The rest we shall leave for the watchful eyes of the historians).
ACTUAL CHALLENGES OF DOMINICAN PREACHING IN THE CONTINENT.
Each one of you would know better what are the priorities and challenges of Dominican preaching in your respective areas of misión, in the human, social and political context in which you are called to exervcise the ministry of evangelization in their diverse forms.
That is why I would like to center my relfection on the generic challenges which I believe show give precedence today in the Order and in the Dominican Family in generrdly shall I make generic references to the relevance of these challenges in the Continent.They need to have something to do with the lessons let to us by that community of Fray Pedro de Cordoba and his companions.
The experience of the faith or the experience of God as a presuposition of all Christian preaching.
When speaking piously it is heard that: one cannot preach nor can have the fruits in preaching if it is not founded in much piety. Yet it is not the same to be pious person in order to become a person that is authentically believer.
Speaking with more realism and more experience, Humbert of Romans said that “it is not the same to give a sermon and to preach”. He wants to say. A sermon can be delivered by anyone, although he may not be a believer because he may took it from another autor, or because he had prepared it base on his studies (a companion of mine reads various books to prepare the Sunday homily, but he always forgets the main point which is not dependent of the books), because he reads it and recites it out of memory. On the contrary, to preach, can only be done by a believing person,that whose life is touched by faith, that which had been believed that is why it is spoken and he speaks from the experience of his life, from his believer’s reading of reality.
Speaking with more realism today, we can say taht if the Dominican man or woman who lack this experience of faith or the experience of God and of humanity, there is no Dominican preaching nor Christian preaching. There can be beautiful discourses, pieace of sacred oratory very much loved by listeners, but there is no Christian preaching. This is the thesis and this the first challenge of preaching in the Order tooy, here and in all continents, as always, faith should not be confused with mere piety or religious sentiment n(they are two very different things).
I shall only add some observations in these affirmations.
I pertain to the so-called “liberal generation” of religious life. That is to say: it was a post-conciliar generation which had joined or participated in the process of “secularization” of our way of life (clothes, schedules, community life, work and vacations…). This is not the momento to make great analysis. But yes we ought to make a critical analysis of the path that had been throd, in order to learn from our success and our mistakes. We cannot overlook all the beautiful conquests of the religious life in this period (the conscience of the dignity of the person, autonomy and responsibility of persons, more democratic habits, dialogued obedience, human rights, dialogue and proximity to the world…). But there is a couple of aspects which is worthy of a special critical evaluation. These are two aspects directly related with the experience of God and of preaching.
The first is the question of secularization. Ours had been effectively a period of secularization, with its lights and shadows. It had affirmed the autonomy of earthly realities and had conveniently desacralized many aspects of life. But it also brought in a sense of weakening of the believer’s way of looking at things and the experience of faith. Secularization is compatible with all except with the abandonement of prayer, of contemplation, of the celebration of the faith, of the believer;s reading of the more secular realities. If secularization of our life had weakened this believer’s reading of life and of history, this experience of God, we are left incapable to make a genuine preaching.
The second is the problem of ideological contamination. This is undoubtedly that in our generation generous in work and militancy, in commitments for very noble causes. Also it is also certain that in this clash in the struggle had adhered in the skin many ideological contaminations, some are the right, the others the left, some conservatists and others liberals, but all of us, and at the end, ideological contaminations. These contaminations had weakened frequently the power and the vigor of the Gospel motivations in these militancies and had emptied at times the Gospel content of our own preaching. Or devoid of sufficient contemplation for discernment or lacking a critical reflection and sufficient study in order to struggle against these contaminations and to leave onself to be led by the Word with a capital letter. I know that nobody is totally free of ideological contaminations, but is is the obligation of those of us who profess the ideal of truth, at least to fight in order to be conscious of it.
A fundamental problem of Dominican life today is if there exist a sufficient experience of faith in order to sustain and enrich our preaching. Fr. Damian Byrne was courageous enough to affirm in one of his letters that there should not be a supposition of faith in Dominican life. In some meeting of the Major Religious Superiors, I head some years ago a controversial address on “Unbelief in Religious Life”. It is not a moral problem to make us feel culpable of it. It is a theological problem because it is about the search for the meaning of life and the motivation of our evangelizing mission and the final content of our preaching in faith. Faith is a gift, it is not a conquest; but it can be asked in prayer and cultivated in the silence of contemplation and in the frontlines of our apostolic commitments.
To reconstruct the communitarian fabric and recuperate the communitarian dimension of Dominican preaching.
We enter this postconciliar period in the legitimate ideal of modernity and later into the postmodernidad: the autonomy of the person and the sacred value of freedom. This ideal is absolutely legitímate and compatible with the Gospel of Jesus. From there they were reinterpreted and oriented itself into many aspects of religious life, especially in the exercise of authority and obedience.
But when we realize that autonomy and freedom of persons had lapsed towards individualism. An autonomous person is a person that can related and can communicate. An individual is an isolated individual. We have neither invented individualism nor is it a sin. It is a cultural characteristic which had adhered to us as we live surrounded in modernity and post-modernity. Perhaps we lack discernment.
The result of this aberration towards individualism had been double.
In the first place it had thrown many brothers and sisters towards solitude, isolation, working for free, and even towards monastic acedia (a specie of sadness encrusted in the soul). Because the path of individualism seem to be sweet at the beginning and bitter in the end.
In the second place it had weakened the communitarian fabric of Dominican life. It also weakened our capacity to sustain the communitarian character of Dominican preaching. And with this we add, almost as a defect of fabrication, at least among the Dominican men, we have always been unwilling to do apostolic work in teams, given the conditions so that our preaching may not be a thing that is merely individual and not in the reach of its communitarian dimension. (I cannot resist to bring here a fact which invites us to reflection: The Pedro de Cordoba Institute, which was a Project of the whole Dominican Family in he continent ended as fast as it began; the Aula Bartolomé de las Casas in La Habana and the Centro San Juan de Letran, is carried on by one friar, and he had been in charge of this Project for many years and is moving further. What is happening to us Dominicans that we are not capable of working as a team?).
I do not know what Dominican communities, whether they are big or small should possess; I do not know how they should be in the future, should they be monastic or more inserted into the world. I only know that the fundamental challenge for the Dominican Family today in this Continente is the reconstruction of our communities.
In the first place each Dominican community would be a lighthouse for these societies in the continent which may still be comunal or communitarian, but where huge steps of individualism and solitude are making huge headways into it. If the communities were a place of reception for persons who feel alone and seek a little of communication of human warmth, they would have already arrive into what John Baptist Metz calls “the political dimension of the vow of chastity: an option for those who feel alone due to exclusion”. CLAR had come to insist on this dimension of chastity and of the religious community for a long time.
Secondly, it is necessary to reconstruct the Dominican community in order to revitalize the Dominican preaching. The relationship between the community of Hispaniola Island and the preaching of those friars was an authentic parable and a challenge for us today. It comes to play various aspects of our preaching:
In the first place, the permanence and consistency of our apostolic projects. Is everything is reduced to individual projects or in the whims of individuals, the apostolic projects will endure until the individual dies, tires himself or assigned by Father Provincial to another place. And the people shall have the sensation that they are always the object of experiments, and nothing more. Here is the importance that all apostolic projects should have acceptation, the backing and if possible, communitarian realization.
In the second place, the communitarian preparation of preaching. This goes back through the cultivation of study, of communitarian dialogue, the permanent formation on themes and problems of interest for the ministry of preaching. The proximate formation by means of a communitarian preparation of homilies, of catechism, the evangelizing praxis. This is an excellent opportunity to share the Word of God and the personal experiences of faith and life.
In the third place, the support of the brothers and sisters in the ministry of preaching. There are moments of despondency and discouragement, of disorientation and perhaps the loss of judgement, of temptation for abandonment. In these moments communitarian support and help of the community in discernment.
And in the fourth place, Gospel witnessing of the community is fundamental in order that the preaching of each and every brother or sisters could be accredited. But this is worthy of another separate chapter.
For all this and many more, but most especially by the demands of Dominican preaching, it is an urgent challenge today in the Continent to reconstruct the the communitarian fabric.
The Gospel witnessing of the Community (and of its members) in order to accredit preaching.
This was perhaps the key of Dominic in order to win success and efficacy of preaching, acredits it with the Gospel life, with a vita vere apostolica, so necessary and sought after in the XIII century. The success of Dominican preaching existed when Gospel life existed (not angelical) in the communities and in the Dominican Family.
Generally the Dominicans men and perhaps the Dominican women are democrats, liberals, autonomous, autarchic, individualistic…or God knows how many others. This makes us free but scarcely efficient, and makes the individual stronger and the community weaker. You can judge for yourselves the pros and cons of this situation.
But there is an aspect in this point which would directly touch to the credibility of our preaching and there is no room for concessions, because the credibility of the Word of God, the task of preaching and our own ministry is in question here. Any Dominican men or women is free to do what they want in each time and place–it his problema or responsibility-, but no one has the right to discredit the preaching of the community and of its members. That is why if it is not for this reason, no one has the right to an Anti-Gospel conduct. This is comparable to weakness, but cynicism is not permitted.
Here the problem becomes to be a problem of personal more, in order to convert itself in a communitarian problem, a problema touches directly the Gospel. That is why, the letters of Paul and the Pastoral letters which frequently appear with his warning: “so that it would not discredit our ministry”. That is why, the community of Pedro de Cordoba places so much emphasis in accrediting his preaching with a Gospel life. It is certain that frequently this exists in many cases is a blindness, our own blindness. That is why it was so urgent the practice of brotherly or sisterly correction, the communitarian discernment of our ways and of our personal plans. (A strong personal experience had taught this to me).
But what is more definitive is the witnessing of the whole community. Once again here are some of the pointers in the game:
This, in the first place, the Gospel quality of living together among the brothers and sisters. The practice of fraternity or sorority is the final ideal of Christian life. That is why charity is the queen of virtues, although when putting in it a little sense of reality, we have to say that in a fundamental version of charity among sinners is permanent forgiveness and constant reconciliation. But something had be to sure of: what had happened in our internal living is transferred, although nobody may talk about it: to the people. And if we have failed in fraternity, our preaching can be radically fruitless. The ideal of the Apostolic community of the Acts of the Apostles had always been an appeal for the religious community. In this area, we ought to work much in order to reconstruct the communitarian fabric for the sake of our preaching.
This in the second place, is the problem of poverty, something we we do not dare to discuss already without blushing. This has two fundamental dimensions.
The first refers to our way of life, our habits of consumption, of comfort, etc…frequently very much superior to the level of life of the people. The strongest words of Dominic were the ones he pronounced on his deathbed cursing those who would stain the Order if they fail to live the Gospel poverty. I shall not comment more about topic because many had said that I am too obsessed with poverty. He knew that poverty of the preacher is the credential of his ministry, what bestows him authroity to speak about the truth and the power of the Gospel.
The second dimension of poverty is as important or much more tan the first and both are related. It refers to the following questions: What are our fundamental options in our ministries? With whom do we relate ourselves more spontaneously? What are our real solidarities and loyalties? For whom and for what do our material, cultural and spiritual patrimony serve? Although they may consider me an idealist, I still think that it is an urgent challenge today to recover the gospel poverty in these two dimensions, everywhere, but most especially in this Continent where the wealth of the preachers is an affront and a scandal for those who are being preached.
And already we are led to the third place, in the Gospel urgency of the option for the poor, the problem is so controversial and debated for a long time.This topic is so developed that it does not need further commentary. I shall only affirm that, despite all the ideological contaminations which had fell upon this option, with the Gospel at hand, it is an obligation and a need to any follower of Jesus. And above all, I shall affirm that, if something acredits the Church today, is precisely her affective and effective option, her presence and her militancy in behalf of the poor and those excluded in the market culture. On the contrary, if something discredits it is the when the poor is overlooked or forgotten and when there is an alliance with the powerful. This presence and this militancy in favour of the disfavoured can also serve as a motive in the insertion in teaching, in the philosophical- theological reflection, in whatever front of militancy… But it should be so. If something accredits the ministry of Evangelization is once again the option for the poor especially among the populace of this Continent.
The challenge of justice, peace and human rights.. .and Dominican preaching.
This topic of justice and human rights is essentially related with the option for the poor or perhaps it is about the better versión of an effective option with the poor. I firmly believe in the importance of mercy and help in times of emergency; but if the option for the poor does not lead to the defense and the struggle for justice, perhaps until it end to find oneself against the cause of the poor.
In this Saint Thomas went further than Saint Dominic, when he wrote his treatise on Justice. (Although we do not know with certainty how Saint Dominic managed the topic of justice, since they had not leave any written testimony. Certainly, between the crusade and the evangelization, opted for evangelization. This is already a way of standing in the side of justice).
And in this, the community of Fray Pedro de Cordoba went further from those of their predecessors. It made a sufficient denunciation for having changed the sign of colonization and evangelization of the Continent. But the interests of the empire had become. The members of that community, urged by their responsibility in the ministry of preaching, they were not cowed when faced by the threats of the civil and military authorities (thet were even threatened even to be sent back to Spain). They preached justce and denounced injustice at the same time, it reaffirmed in the second sermon after the threats, and reached the court so that the truth would be known and would change the whole system of conquest, colonization and evangelization. They implied the brothers of Salamanca and Avila. Into the the cause of justice, which was the cause of the Indians (It was an interesting version of the dieal which we pursue together in the mission).
Today, so that preaching may be truly Dominican, is an urgent challenge for the Order and for the whole Dominican Family to incor our ministries the cause of justice, peace , of human rights of all the majority and minorities who suffer from the violation of their basic rights. To tread in these causes is not to do politics but to make the Gospel, it is to get the public and political consequences of the Gospel message which we preach. This was what Paul VI was able to reach to the intuition that justice is the name of universal charity today.
But it is in this area in which we can unite the law and fact, as the community of fray Pedro de Cordoba did. Because especially in the ambit of justice and of human rights no basta la defensa de la causa en la docencia and in preaching. It is necessary to add or to introduce commitment on all fronts if it would be necessary and in versions as demanded by each moment. Our brother Henry Desrossiers is an example, among many of “preaching outside preaching”, as Humbert of Romans had said. (He said that we ought to preach outside preaching, and we ought to preach with the whole body). Our brother is an example of commitment with justice defending those who are landless beyond the pulpit (From here we hope that he would recover his health). In order to discern these presences, these causes, these commitments and to maintain ourselves firm and constant in them, despite the difficulties and the death threats, we also need the discernment and comunitary support.
In this point of justice and human rights perhaps was the first challenge to pass what is said to fact, from the law and fact, because the Dominican men at least, ( I do now know about the Dominican women), and perhaps I am the first man very much given to resolve everything by 1way of rationalizing, of discourse and of explanations… In the topics of justice and peace, without taking away the importance of discourse and the scientifi and critical explanations, what was most urgent was the practical solutions, the facts and the liberating praxis which had been defended in the Continent for some decades. In any case, I believe that the courage and the resistance in these causes of justice and of human rights, despite its risks and threats, are only guaranteed whan there are genuine Gospel motivations, the sufficient experience of the faith and the abundance of theological. On the contrary… it may either end in abandonment or to take the erroneous direction of militancy.
In all cases, we know that if our preaching is not supported by a committed option for justice and human rights, it shall be discredited by itself. And in order to to be sure that the option is for justice and peace, a good sign is to put oneself in the part of the victims.
The challenge of study and Dominican preaching.-
At times we hear laments within the Order complaining that we already do not have famous Master like Dominque Marie Chenu, Yves Congar, Christian Duquoc… Though there is still Edward Schillebeecks, though already advanced in age and long retired. I have heard in some part that this is not the time of great individual geniuses as in the previous centuries but it is a time of groups or “Equipes”.. But are there true groups of reflection and study in the Dominican Order? The absence of these masters and the scarcity of these perhaps blatantly show some manifest some deficiencies in study.
In the reform of the Order in Spain before Fray Pedro de Cordoba and his companions came to America, the two great fronts of reform were the cultivation of mysticism and the intense dedication to study. That is why, the brethren of the community of Hispaniola Island were learned and they came equipped with a good library in order to competently exercise the ministry of evangelization. (The possession of many books and good libraries had never been considered in the Order as a sin against poverty. If this had already been considered as a grave fault in the Primitive Constitutions in not taking care of books, this is all a sign of the importance of Study in the Dominican project. Everything is a sign of importance of study in the Dominican project). That is why the community of Pedro de Cordoba deliberated exhaustively on the situation, on the signs of the times, on the Gospel message and its implications before Montesinos pronounced his sermon.
In the Dominican Family does not need many arguments in order to prove the importance study has in a competent preaching and evangelization. Humbert says that the only teacher of the preachers is the Holy Spirit, and that this office is a gift from God and cannot be learned through practice as in other offices. But he immediately adds to say: Although preaching is a gift from God, one must still dedicate himself in assiduous study and prayer, this is not to speak of sophisms or go about with words, or to multiply anecdotes… but in order to transmit the true message. (p. 52 y 53). The preacher must know Scriptures, the creatures and history (p. 62). This is to say, that the grace of preaching does not dispense anyone from study and of the preparation for sermons. (Counsel to a charismatic brother: to carry with him an outline just in case the Spirit did not arrive).
I do not know if should evaluate the situation of study among Dominican men and women, in the mens’ communities and in the women’s communities of the Continent. It is an extended opinion in the higher echelons of the Order that study is in its low moments. I do not affirm not deny this here.
I only know and I say that in order that the Dominican men and women study is not a simple regular observance, it is a moral obligation founded upon the profession in the Order of Preachers, in the Dominican Family. It is precisely for the sake of ministry of preaching and of evangelization, as this task is too serious and demanding to be entrusted to arbitrarities or momentary occurrences. And these types of sermons are many.
I do not know what are the reasons of this low moment in study within the Dominican Family. If they are the many activities and many administrative work, then there is a need to revise the works and ministries in order to give a space for Dominican contemplation, in such a way that it forms part of study. If it is due to the lack of stimulus or the fear of making an effort or to the practice of studiositas (as Saint Thomas so said), it should be overcome and be corrected. If this is for fear of the truth or the fear to enter a dialogue with the actual world, eanc time is tis complex, less confessional and familiar with our habits of thought, we ought to arm ourselves of courage and to help one another mutually to bite the teeth in the problem of truth in the world so pluralistic. If this is so because the mission is so “light” or is so dead that it does not even demand from us study or reflection or better close down the mission…
Permit me to make reference to a very recent experience. A brother commented to me recently that in his community he was the frequent object of sarcasm and made fun of because he believed in study and dedicates hours to it. He felt tempted to leave this task so that he would not be singled out by the brethren as the intellectual, the one who belives to be bright, the one who believes to possess ideas that can save the world… This reminds me of a problem shown in the practice of the Spanish educational system. Outstanding students fear to be outstanding in their knoledge and qualifications because it goes against those who do not stand out or those who are not even interested in learning. So that they may not feel bad or discriminatred, it is better that all the students of the center enter through the path of mediocrity. I hope that this brother is an isolated case and an exceptional anecdote.
Whatever the situation of study in the Order and in the Dominican Family, whatever the reasons of these low moments of study, decisive as it may seem, if we believe that preaching is the essential ministry of the Dominican Family, study is a prioritary challenge in the personal and communitarian level. And as Humbert de Romans said, one has to know the Scriptures and creatures, and also of history and society, the signs of the times and the reigning ideologies and the structural causes of poverty, of injustice, of violence… the enormous problems which are being presented to us by bioethics, of ecology and economy…and so many, so many areas which should not be isolated from our preaching.
Fr. Felicísimo Martínez, O.P.
Madrid, 19-10-09
