Friend, Go Up Higher

Extract

The thirteenth century was without a doubt the golden age in the history of the Order of Friars-Preachers. Great men in the Order were so numerous that you could not possibly tick them off on your fingers as you might the eminent names in any other sphere or age. You might just as well try to sort out the leaves that strew the brooks of Vallombrosa, or count the waves in the sea or the stars in the sky. Perhaps that is why so many great names are so little remembered. Memory breaks down under its burden. The thickly-clustered constellation creates one luminous blaze and the single stars are lost in the glare.

Perhaps you have never heard of John of Vercelli precisely because his brilliance has been—no, not eclipsed, but absorbed in the steady glow of his shining contemporaries. Who, then, you may well ask, was this Dominican star?

The Blessed Father John of Vercelli was the sixth Master General of the Order. Both time and place of his birth are doubtful, and, indeed, very little is known of his early years. But we know that he died at Montpellier in 1283, and we gather, therefore, that, even if he ever set eyes on St. Dominic, it must have been unreflecting baby eyes or the solemn eyes of very eariy boyhood. Anyhow, if he had never met St. Dominic in person, he early came under the spell of Dominic’s sons, and was caught up in the stupendous movement Dominic had started. We know for certain that, before he became a Friar, John taught Canon Law in the University of Paris. Now, no man at any university in the Middle Ages could by any possibility help seeing and hearing Friars-Preachers.