Saint Dominic de Guzman, whose feast is August 8, was a reported miracle worker who brought four people back from the dead.
There was the “Widow’s Son,” who died and was prayed over by Saint Dominic, who made the Sign of the Cross and restored him to life. (Dominic asked that the miracle not be publicized for the sake of humility, but news spread regardless.)
There was a nephew of Cardinal Stephen Napoleone Orsini, who died after a fall from a horse and was brought back when Saint Dominic arranged the corpse with tender care and invoked Christ’s name: “Young man, Napoleon, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, I say to thee arise.” So he did.
There was the friar in Toulouse who died suddenly: According to witnesses, Dominic threw himself to the ground in prayer beside the body, shedding tears and pleading with God for the friar’s return. (Moments later, the young man stirred and opened his eyes.)
There was the canon of Saint James: According to tradition, Dominic brought him back to life after he died suddenly in Compostela, again through fervent intercession.
Those are examples for which there are details.
Accounts relate that Dominic received a vision of a beggar who, like Dominic, would do great things for the Faith.
Dominic met the beggar the next day. He embraced him and said, “You are my companion and must walk with me. If we hold together, no earthly power can withstand us.” The beggar was Saint Francis of Assisi.
And so obviously, a powerful saint.
Critical to the Church?
Dominic not only fought heresy but was instrumental in bequeathing to us the Rosary.
At one juncture the saint, who founded the Dominicans, became discouraged at the progress of his mission; no matter how much he worked, the heresies remained.
But then he received a vision from the Blessed Virgin Mary, who showed him a wreath of roses representing the Rosary, instructing him to say it daily, teach it to all who would listen, and eventually the true faith would win out.
And so it happened.
Dominic is often credited with the invention of the Rosary, and while it actually pre-dates him, no one was more instrumental in spreading devotion to it and employing it to strengthen his own spiritual life.
As the Vatican’s website has noted, “For a Christian to live one’s life entirely consumed by Christ, to be united with Him in prayer, to have the Name of Jesus always on one’s lips, might seem an impossible ideal. And yet, we know of great men and women throughout history who have lived up to that ideal more or less closely. One of these was Dominic de Guzman, St. Dominic, an exact contemporary of St. Francis, who, like the Poor Man of Assisi, tried to conform his life to the model of Jesus Christ.”
Too often, consumed by worldliness—podcasts, social media, politics—we forget to seek that conformity in our own lives.
[resources: books on saints]
