Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/December 20
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Saint Dominic of Silos (Santo Domingo de Silos) (1000—December 10, 1073) is a Spanish saint, to whom the Monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos is dedicated.
Born in Cañas, La Riojain the kingdom of Navarre (today part of Spain), on the Spanish side of the Pyrenees, , to a family of peasants, he worked as a shepherd before becoming a Benedictine monk at the monastery of San Millán de Cogolla. As a young boy he spent time in the fields, where he welcomed the solitude. He became novice master and then prior there before being driven out with two of his fellow monks by the king of Navarre, who wished to annex the monastery's lands.
Under the protection of Ferdinand I of León, king of Castille, they found refuge at the monastery later named after him, the San Sebastian monastery at Silos, diocese of Burgos where Dominic was appointed abbot. Founded in 954, the monastery had fallen on hard times. There were only six monks left and the monastery was in terrible shape physically, financially and spiritually.
There Dominic rebuilt the monastery, both spiritually and physically, and turned it into a center of book design, gold and silver work, scholarship, and charity. The monastery became one of the centers of the Mozarabic liturgy, a special form of the Roman rite, and also preserved the Visigothic script of ancient Spain.
Wealthy patrons endowed the monastery, and Dominic raised funds to ransom Christians taken prisoner by the Moors. He died of natural causes in 1073.
Dominic's relics were translated to the monastery church at Silos on January 5, 1076. Churches and monasteries were dedicated to him as early as 1085. His special patronage was connected with pregnancy, and before 1931, his abbatial staff was used to bless Spanish queens and kept by their beds when they were in labor.
The mother of Saint Dominic of Guzmán is said to have prayed at the shrine of Dominic of Silos before she conceived the child that would subsequently found the Dominican Order.
Attributes: abbot surrounded by the Seven Virtues; mitred abbot enthroned with a book, a veil tied to his crozier.
Patronage: against rabies; against rabid dogs; against insects; captives; pregnant women; prisoners; shepherds
Prayer:
