Notes from a Retreat Introduction

In 1908 Pere Humbert Clerissac OP preached a retreat to English Dominicans at Hawkesyard Priory, which was subsequently published as The Spirit of St. Dominic (Burns, Oates & Washbourne, 1939). The retreat is a remarkable work which covers a wide vista of Dominican life from its defense of truth to liturgical life, from its nobility to its doctrine of grace, from its devotion to the Blessed Sacrament and the Blessed Virgin Mary to its loyalty to the Church. In the coming series of posts I intend to publish extracts from the retreat and some of the fruits of my own contemplation which have been fertilized by the words of Abbe Clerissac.

Born in 1864, at the age of sixteen Pere Clerissac read the life St. Dominic by Pere Lacordaire and was immediately drawn to the Order. He became a well known preacher in England, France and Italy, and God blessed his ministry with many conversions. When the French anti-clerical laws came into force in 1903, he went to London with the hope of establishing a French Dominican foundation. Circumstance however prevented him from doing so and after a lengthy stay in England, he returned to France. He died just before the outbreak of the Great War in 1914, leaving behind the memory of an influential preacher and spiritual director.

In a letter written before his death he deplored the possibility "of dying without having done anything for the Order. To bring others to understand and love its luminous spirit, the eternal youth of its doctrinal tradition, its exquisite large-mindedness, its sublime idealism - would not one willingly die to make that known and loved." As the editor notes, these retreat conferences prove that Pere Clerissac did not die without having fulfilled his noble ambition.