Telling children the story of St. Dominic, with help from man’s best friend

Eleanor Bourg Nicholson is an award-winning novelist, scholar, Victorian literature instructor for Homeschool Connections, a Dominican tertiary, and a homeschooling mother of five. Hound of the Lord: The Story of Saint Dominic, written for children and from the perspective of a dog, was published recently by Magnificat and Ignatius Press. She corresponded with CWR about St. Dominic (she says he is “difficult” and not known well enough by most Catholics), what attracted her to him, the Saint’s greatest weapon, and the Dominican order. Oh, and the narrator dog!

CWR: What first attracted you to St. Dominic?

Eleanor Bourg Nicholson: His companions. I knew and loved many Dominican saints and Dominican friars before I found my way to St. Dominic. It was rather like being drawn to the reflection of a light before seeing the light itself. One of the legends about St. Dominic is that his godmother saw a star shining on his forehead at the moment of his baptism. Later in life, many spoke of the joy of Christ radiating from his face. I traced the Dominican light back to its source, and then found, of course, that St. Dominic himself reflected Christ.

CWR: When did you decide to present St. Dominic to children?

Nicholson: While I was working as the Director of Religious Education at our Parish, I was struck that, while many children knew of St. Therese of Lisieux, St. John Paul II, St. Francis, St. Thomas Aquinas (our parish patron), and others, they knew nothing of St. Dominic. I spoke with some of our friars, and the general consensus was that he was a difficult saint to present to children. At the same time, I realized that he was one of the saints I very much desired my own children to know and love. He inspired so many other great saints and he inspired me, and I wanted him to inspire them.

CWR: Why is he a difficult saint?

Nicholson: That’s just it; I don’t think he should be. I wonder, though, if we are sometimes intimidated by his perfection and the emphasis on scholarship. His history and the legends associated with him are enchanting and inspiring. At the same time, he is one of those saints who were clearly marked by God for a special purpose. We don’t look at him and say: “Oh, he struggled like me”, or “His life looked like mine”.

But we can look at him, see the Light of Christ shining in him, and be drawn to that Light. When I began to look closely at St. Dominic, I found that my heart swelled toward Christ in a new way.

Additionally, we might balk at the scholarly weight of the Dominican tradition. St. Dominic, recognizing the confusion and error rife in his own time, sought to establish this Order of Preachers to combat it. Thus, study is a fundamental component of the Dominican tradition, along with prayer, community, and apostolic endeavor. Now, if you go to children and say: “Here’s a saint who loved study!” some children (including mine, if they thought it was a trick to force them to do more schoolwork) might recoil. So I determined to present St. Dominic holistically, and to show the beauty and richness of the scholarly tradition that flows from him without cringing from it. (I should add that I’m a nerdy devotee of that scholarly tradition. Study is one of my favorite occupations.)

CWR: Why is that scholarly tradition important to you?

Nicholson: The Dominican tradition was highly formative for me (my mother embraced Thomistic moral theology when I was a child and passed it on to us), for my husband (who is a philosopher and a convert), and is now foundational in our homeschooling. Our days are interwoven with theological and philosophical conversations, from the Truths of the Faith to confusing things of the world that, even homeschooled, our children still encounter. St. Dominic teaches us not to fear inquiry or questions. He also teaches us where to find the answers we seek. We know that our children will continue over their lives to encounter strange, frightening, and tempting ideas and things. We want to prepare them to negotiate all of this with serenity and Faith. Grounding them in the Truth and teaching them how to think and how to study is critical.

CWR: What does St. Dominic have to offer to us today?

Nicholson: St. Dominic lived at a time when teaching was confused—like ours! There was widespread heresy, known as Catharism or Albigensianism, which was very persuasive. It was a dualist heresy, with a good god (who reigned over things spiritual) and a bad god (who reigned over things material). This boiled down to a division: the spirit is good, the body is evil. (There are so many points of connection here, since many of the most toxic “teachings” prevalent today are rooted in confusion about what it means to be human and what our bodies have to do with it!)

Pope Innocent III initiated a mission to preach against the heresy, but with little effect. Over time, St. Dominic received permission for himself and his followers to embark on a mission of evangelical preaching, tramping all over Europe in poverty and even barefoot! They preached the Truth, but they preached it in perfect charity. That is another of the beautiful things St. Dominic has to teach us. There is a story about an innkeeper who had embraced Albigensianism. St. Dominic stayed up all night with the innkeeper—not mocking him or browbeating him, but tirelessly speaking to him of the Truth. In the morning, the innkeeper returned to the Church.

That is a story of charitable accompaniment, and of relationship in preaching. Sometimes when we fall in love with Truth, we can become uncharitable. We so much want others to share in that Truth, that we want to force them to do so. There was a Crusade fought against the Cathars—but notice St. Dominic was not a combatant. He literally wept for sinners. This is a reminder of two things: that we cannot correct someone unless we love him first, and that prayer and preaching are not weapons of coercion.

CWR: In your book, you speak of St. Dominic’s greatest weapon. What was it?

Nicholson: Another lovely story and an illustration of the point! At a moment when St. Dominic was sad at the slowness of the people to return to the Church, Our Lady came to him and gave him his most powerful “weapon” for preaching: her Rosary. This is Our Lady’s catechesis, her perfect, loving accompaniment, wherein she shows us her Son, that we might come to know Him and love Him. Dominicans love the Rosary. You can see this love today in the work of the Promoter of the Rosary, Fr. Lawrence Lew, OP, and initiatives such as Dominican Rosary Pilgrimages—and in the rattle of beads hanging from the belts of Dominican friars throughout the world.

CWR: The narrator of The Hound of the Lord is a dog. Where does he come from?

Nicholson: That’s another of the legends of St. Dominic. While his mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant with him, she dreamed of a dog with a torch in its mouth—a dog who set the world afire. That dog is taken as a symbol of St. Dominic, who set the world on fire with his preaching. I’ve always loved that legend, and been attracted to depictions of Dominican dogs.

I even encountered one! In 2010, while traveling in Spain, I visited many Dominican sites. When we arrived in Caleruega, St. Dominic’s birthplace, I wandered into the deserted center of the city, and a tiny stray dog ran up to me and began to frolic at my feet. I immediately embraced him as “Torch”, feeling as if St. Dominic had sent me a personal greeting. When I decided to write St. Dominic’s biography for children, Torch was a non-negotiable part of the project.

CWR: You’re a member of the Dominican Laity. How does that reflect St. Dominic and what is its purpose?

Nicholson: The Lay Fraternity of St. Dominic is a community of lay men and women who embrace the pillars of the Order of Preachers—prayers, study, community, and apostolate—while remaining in the world. The commitment as Lay Dominicans does not eclipse our duties of state; it is seamlessly woven into them. I live as a Dominican Laywoman primarily as a wife and mother. Just as St. Dominic sought to spread the Light of Christ through the world, I want to spread that Light in my home and to those I encounter each day.

CWR: You’ve taken this love of St. Dominic into Gothic novels as well. How do they fit in?

Nicholson: Yes, I have three Gothic novels with Dominican friars who battle the preternatural: A Bloody Habit (Vampires; Ignatius Press 2017), Brother Wolf (Werewolves; Chrism Press 2021), and Wake of Malice (A panoply of Irish folklore; forthcoming Chrism Press 2024). These are a little outrageous and, I hope, humorous, even in their horrifying grotesquerie, but they do illustrate the illuminative quality of St. Dominic. My creature-dispatching OPs are shining lights to pierce the darkness of evil and error—and they emanate true Dominican joy while they’re doing it!