February 13

Jordan of Saxony (ca.1185-1237) priest

Today the Dominicans remember Jordan of Saxony, who was Dominic of Guzman's biographer and succeeded him as superior of the Order of Preachers.
Jordan was born in Burgberg, Saxony, around the year 1185, and went to Paris to study theology.
In Paris Jordan met Dominic, and his life changed profoundly. A year later, he and a close friend, Henry of Cologne, entered the Dominican Order.
After Dominic's death, Jordan took over the leadership of the Order, and consolidated and expanded the activity of the Preachers. During his ministry, the number of convents and brothers grew tenfold, the Constitutions were written, and Dominican life took on its defining features, in years of great turmoil and spiritual instability.
Jordan was a profoundly peaceful man and an efficacious promoter of the evangelical ideals that had guided Dominic's life and activity. In his Book on the Origins of the Preaching Friars, he left us a balanced account of Dominic's life, free of hagiographical excesseses.
Jordan died in a shipwreck on February 13, 1237 as he was returning from the Holy Land, where he had travelled on one of his frequent visits to the provinces of the Order.

BIBLICAL READINGS
Eph 4:1-7.11-13; Lk 10:1-9

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THE CHURCHES REMEMBER...

COPTS AND ETHIOPIANS (5 amsir/yakkatit):
Apollo the Shepherd (4th cent.), monk (Coptic Orthodox Church)
Agrippinus (2nd cent.), patriarch of Alexandria (Coptic Catholic Church)

LUTHERANS:
Christian Friedrich Schwartz (d. 1798), missionary in India

MARONITES:
Martinian of Caesarea (4th-5th cent.), monk

ORTHODOX CHRISTIANS AND GREEK CATHOLICS:
Martinian of Caesarea, monk

WEST SYRIAN ORTHODOX:
Elijah III (d. ca. 723), patriarch of Antioch