Rome Newsroom, Aug 8, 2025 / 04:00 am

The first image to greet visitors to the basilica containing the tomb of St. Dominic in Bologna, Italy, is a mosaic of the saint next to a dog carrying a flaming torch in its mouth.

This is not a depiction of a pyromaniacal game of fetch but a reference to a dream that foretold the 13th-century preacher’s mission in the world — to be the bearer of divine fire across Europe, illuminating the darkness of heresy and sin with truth and charity.

“When St. Dominic’s mother, Blessed Jane of Aza, was pregnant, she had a dream of a dog with a torch in its mouth running around the world and setting everything on fire. She went to the monastery of Santo Domingo de Silos and asked a monk what it meant. He replied that the child in her womb would be a great prea

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