Spirituality Reading Plan

Here is very much a beginner’s list, as anyone well-read in Dominican spirituality can tell you. But what is Dominican spirituality?

Dominicans are quick to say that what many persons today mean by “spirituality” is a kind of concept only developed during Europe’s Renaissance — and therefore something that arises hundreds of years after the founding of the Dominican Order.

And so, do Dominicans even have a spirituality?

If by “spirituality” we mean a system or method of prayer, then yes: Dominicans do have a tradition of methods or spiritualities, although they are not presented as deriving from a kind of manual.

​These books below provide (in our view) the clearest sketches of Dominican methods of prayer. It would be best to read these books in the order listed. We include Benedict XVI’s “Jesus trilogy” because the passionate study of the Word of God — Jesus Christ — is the foundation for anything spiritual, and the trilogy provides the best portrait of Christ, in our view. 

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Stage 1

1. Paul Murray’s New Wine of Dominican Spirituality
2. Humbert Clerissac’s Spirit of St. Dominic

Stage 2

1. Bede Jarrett’s Life of Dominic
2. Benedict XVI’s Jesus of Nazareth trilogy

Stage 3

1. Sigrid Undset’s Catherine of Siena
2. Paul Murray’s Aquinas at Prayer

Stage 4

1. Josef Pieper’s Silence of Thomas Aquinas
2. A. Sertillanges’s The Intellectual Life