January 7 - St. Raymond of Peñafort

Raymond of Peñafort (1175-1275) was a Spanish nobleman and lawyer who joined the Dominicans in 1218, in their earliest years.  He went to law school and became a professor at the University of Bologna, the chief center for the study of canon law in the Middle Ages.  I mention this only because I spent a year of grad school studying international relations in Bologna.  I remember the imposing stone tombs placed on high pedestals outside many of the churches there, and when we asked the Italians who these people were, we were told, in hushed and reverent voices, “They were lawyers.”  This led us to make many obvious jokes about how it was only in Bologna that the lawyers got to be saints.

 

In My Life With The Saints, Fr. James Martin wrote, “Thomas Aquinas spent his life surrounded by books, while Francis of Assisi told his friars not to own even one lest they become too proud.  The multiplicity of desires leads to a multiplicity of paths to God.” 

 

Like Thomas Aquinas, Raymond of Peñafort's path to holiness was through his learning.  His compilation of canon law was so clear and skillfully done that it was used for the next seven centuries.  He wrote books of case studies for confessors to help with their pastoral work, and became confessor to the pope.  He co-authored apologetics material for non-Christians with Thomas Aquinas.  He introduced the study of Hebrew and Arabic among the Dominicans, and spent much of his career traveling throughout Spain preaching with great effectiveness to Jews and Muslims.

 

I have known Christian circles where higher education was held in disdain, and Raymond serves as a reminder that the human intellect, consecrated to God, can be of great service indeed.

 

So why the picture of him sailing in the goofy-looking boat?

 

In the presence of many witnesses, including the King of Aragon (who repented from his sins in wonder at the sight), he threw his cloak onto the sea, fastened it to his staff, and sailed from the island of Majorca to Barcelona, a distance of about one hundred miles, in six hours.  He arrived with a dry cloak and entered his monastery through locked doors.