The Dominican Order is officially titled the “Order of Preachers”. Everything the order does is supposed to be aimed toward preaching for the salvation of souls. But Dominicans have the wonderfully old-fashioned notion that if you’re going to speak about something you should know what you’re talking about. Hence, study has been an essential part of Dominican life from the beginning. A Dominican might not have anything to eat—the early Dominican friars were mendicants, and begged for their food—but a Dominican always has books.

The first book to study, is, of course, the Bible. Studying the Bible in a Catholic context is a challenging endeavor—not because the Church frowns on it, as some have said, but because there is so very much to know. One of the major principles of exegesis is that a passage of scripture cannot be interpreted in a vacuum, but must be interpreted in the light of all of the remainder of scripture and the entire deposit of faith. Acquiring such a universal knowledge of scripture is difficult, to say the least, and practically speaking we must look for help. Even there, the task is daunting, as Catholics have been reading and commenting on scripture from the earliest days of the Church.

But although study must begin with scripture it doesn’t end there. Dominican study often includes philosophy and theology, as well as various kinds of spiritual reading; and in the lay context, it also includes any kind of study required to live one’s life in the world. In my case, for example, it’s appropriate for me to study software engineering and computer science.

Finally, Dominicans need to be up on current events so as to bring the Faith to bear on the issues of the day. This is the bit, I confess, that I have the least interest in.

I said above that study must begin with scripture, but in fact that’s not quite true. In fact, study must begin with prayer, for prayer is the foundation for everything we do.