Raymond, born in 1175 at
Villafrance, near Barcelona, Spain, was of noble descent, like
his contemporary, Saint Thomas Aquinas. He was of the
illustrious family of Peņafort, related to the kings of Aragon.
Since his youth he was a bright and studious. At the age of
twenty he was professor of philosophy. He taught in Barcelona
for fifteen years, then went to Bologna, Italy, to study for his
doctorate in civil and canon law. He received the degree in 1216
and three years later returned to Spain.
On Good Friday of the year 1222,
Raymond entered the Dominican Order in Barcelona. He
always lived his vocation with great humility. He
practiced mortification. During his novitiate he prepared a
collection of "cases of conscience" for the guidance of
confessors and moralists. This work, entitled The
Summa of Penitential Cases, was the first guide of this
kind to be compiled.
Raymond was a zealous
preacher, reaching out to the Jews and
Moors (Muslims). He was also spiritual director for King James
of Aragon and Saint Peter Nolasco, whom he aided in founding the
Order of Our Lady of Mercy (Mercedarians) for the ransom of
captives from the Moors.
King James valued Raymond so
highly that on several occasions he sent him on missions to the
Holy See. At one time, however, he stoutly resisted Raymond's
admonitions regarding chastity, and a miracle was
required before the monarch consented to reform his life. This
miracle took place during a visit to Majorca on which Raymond
had accompanied the king in the hope of strengthening
Christianity there. They had been on the island only a short
time when Raymond discovered that the king was involved in a
sinful love affair with a woman of the court. The king refused
to listen to Raymond's protests, and when Raymond threatened to
leave the island, the king threatened with death anyone who
would give him passage. Thereupon, Raymond spread his cloak on
the water, set up his staff as a mast, and, having rigged up a
corner of the cloak as a sail, boarded this miraculous "boat,"
setting his course for Barcelona. He arrived there the same day,
having covered 140 miles in about six hours. A great crowd
assembled at the waterfront witnessed the end of this marvelous
voyage, which inspired numerous conversions.
Raymond's work in Spain was
interrupted in 1230, when he was summoned to Rome by Pope
Gregory IX, appointed to the papal court, and made papal
confessor. He was then charged with the task of rearranging
and codifying the canon laws of the Church. His success
in this vast editorial job is astonishing, since he had to
rewrite and condense decrees that had been accumulating for
centuries. Completed in 1234., the work remained the most
authoritative compilation within the body of canon law until
1917, when a new code was published. Gregory sought to reward
Raymond by appointing him archbishop of Tarragona, but the saint
declined the honor and returned to Spain.
In 1238 Raymond was elected
general of the Dominican Order. This honor, too, was
unsought and undesired, but he humbly obeyed the decision of his
brothers, ruled them for two years, then resigned because of ill
health. Although he was now an elderly man, Raymond had no
intention of retiring. He was still concerned with converting
the Jews and the Moors, and so he contributed the alms he
received from bishops and princes to schools where missionaries
could be taught the Hebrew and Arabic languages. He also asked
Saint Thomas Aquinas to write a book exposing the errors of the
Mohammedan rationalists. Thomas complied by composing the Summa
contra gentiles, one of his most famous works.
Raymond died on January 6, the
Feast of the Epiphany, in 1275, the hundredth year of his life.
He was canonized in 1601 by Pope Clement VIII.
Main Page
