Novena to Blessed Jordan of Saxony
February 5, 2014
Blessed Jordan of Saxony, the second Master General of the Order of Preachers, is known as patron of Dominican vocations because of the large number of people he attracted to the Order. Over the next nine days, a new post will appear on the vocation blog describing a scene from the life of Blessed Jordan of Saxony and a concluding prayer. Please join us in praying for vocations for the Order of Preachers that “the master of the harvest will send out laborers for his harvest.” This novena was written by Fr. Raymund Snyder OP.
Day 1 (FIRST): Blessed Jordan’s Humility
Blessed Jordan, after hardly being a Dominican friar for a year, was asked to be a provincial in the province of Lombardy. He recounts it sadly:
“In 1221, at the General Chapter in Bologna, they saw fit to make me the first provincial of Lombardy, although I had only been in the order one year and had not struck root as deeply as I ought to have done. I was to be placed over others as their superior, before I had learned to govern my own imperfection.”
Bl. Jordan undoubtedly had great talent as a leader. Yet, some of this came from his very real appreciation of his own human limitations, faults and sins. This gave him the interior freedom to direct his leadership to the good of the Order of Preachers, rather than his own private good. Bl. Jordan’s fast trip towards leadership was not for him a source of pride, but rather a reason for humility, a humility that bore fruit in his faithful administration and in his reception of vocations. Let us pray to Blessed Jordan for vocations for the Order of Preachers:
Blessed Jordan of Saxony, worthy successor of St. Dominic, in the early days of the Order, your example and zeal prompted many men and women to follow Christ in the white habit of Our Holy Father. As patron of Dominican vocations, continue to stimulate talented and devoted men and women to consecrate their lives to God. Through your intercession, lead to the Order of Preachers generous and sacrificing persons, willing to give themselves fervently to the apostolate of Truth. Help them to prepare themselves to be worthy of the grace of a Dominican vocation. Inspire their hearts to become learned of God, that with firm determination they might aspire to be “champions of the Faith and true lights of the world.”
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Image: Jordan of Saxony, photography by Fr. Lawrence Lew, O.P.
