"Family” is metaphor that evokes and expresses the experience of a mutual property, sharing the same name and the same roots, being clear and helping mutually in an affectionate relation as brothers and sisters.
The Dominican family is this communion of friars, nuns, sisters of apostolic life, members of secular institutes, annexed brotherhoods of priests and lay, associations next to the service, that thanks to their charm, have received the order to assume the same mission of preaching and compassion.
Its presence is a source of life for the Order and an enrichment for its mission. That is manifested in the Acts of the chapter of providence: "The consciousness of lay about the vocation and lay mission in the Church, the Service and the world; the source of attraction of the Dominican charm; the mission to preach the Word of God in this world of change; and the vitality and apostolic options of the Dominican Family are a stimulus and an evangelical provocation to incarnate, of diverse ways, the Dominican life and a mission from the peculiar lay ecclesiastic condition."
About the lays, the Catechism of Catholic church says that:
“They have as their own vocation looking for the
“They must be conscious, not only to belong to the church, but of being the church, that is to say, the community of the faithful people over the Earth, under the guide of the common head, the Roman Pontiff and the bishops in communion to him.” (CIC 899)
“They have the obligation and they enjoy the right… to work so that the Divine message of the salvation is known and received by all.” (CIC 900)
“The cathecism compendium says that the church the lays must offer to God -more than ever in the eucharisty- our own life with every work, every pray… the familiar life and the everyday work, the annoyances of the daily life taken patiently, as well as the physical rests and spiritual consolations.” (CIC 188-191)
The church recognizes that the function that the lays carry out in the world is vitally important, according to, among others documents, the Dogmatic constitution ”Gentium Lumen”, of the Vatican council II; in the Apostolic exhortation Christi Fideles Laici, of Juan Pablo II and in the Catechism of the Catholic church, that dedicates to the subject the numbers 897 to 913.
The Dominican Family is born from the vocation and charm of Santo Domingo de Guzmán, preacher of the Gospel of Jesus Christ (cl. CG Bolonia, 146). Like arising from a tree planted next to the live sources, the branches of the Dominican Family are multiple. All of them share the same mission of preaching, each one with their own character, its particular statute and its autonomy.
To preach the word is not only to communicate an abstract truth, but also to try to model life and society. The expression “Word of God” can only have sense when it is a creative and transforming word that helps the construction of the Kingdom. It exists, therefore, an intimate relation between the Dominican vocation to the preaching and the passion by justice.
The Dominican Order, says the Acts, is between two movements of the church and the world: promotion of the laity and women liberation.
The lays are incorporated to a mission of church and put to the service of the preaching of the truth, "according to its own way". These activities will take throughout the centuries very varied forms; they will ignore to enter in the "grace of Dominican predication" by works of charity and, in singular cases, by education.
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