Beloved Dominican Saints, a painting by Bernadette Carstensen, commissioned by the St. Joseph Province for the 800th jubilee of the Order of Preachers, portrays 24 Dominican saints and blesseds. St. Dominic, the founder, appears kneeling in the center left. Image courtesy of the artist, Bernadette Carstensen, © Dominican Province of St. Joseph, 2015
Today in the Dominican Order, the Feast of Blessed Dalmatius is celebrated. Little information exists for this truly heroic saint online aside from the text from the Short Lives of the Dominican Saints published originally in 1901. As the life of this truly holy man is worth imitating, here is an excerpt from that book:
Blessed Dalmatius Moner was born of pious and respectable parents at a small town in Catalonia, about A.D. 1291. From childhood he was distinguished for innocence and piety. He received a good education at Girona, which was completed at the University of Montpellier. Entering the Dominican Order at the age of twenty-five, he made it his lifelong study perfectly to conform his conduct to the requirements of the Rule and the Constitutions. He was employed for many years in teaching, but at length humbly resigned this office from a desire to devote himself more closely to the service of God.
Blessed Dalmatius led a life of extreme penance and mortification. He seldom ate anything but herbs and vegetables, almost raw, and in the burning heat of a Spanish summer would entirely abstain from drinking for as many as twenty consecutive days. His scanty rest was taken on the bare ground; he afflicted his body with continual fasts, disciplines, and other austerities, and devoted himself day and night to the exercises of prayer and contemplation. Continue reading...Collect:
O God who didst make Thy humble servant Dalmatius glorious for many miracles and virtues, and didst wonderfully inflame him with Thy love, to the despising of all earthy things, grant, we beseech Thee, through his intercession, that we may be disengaged from all earthy affections and freed from all adversities, and have no desire but for the things of heaven. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
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