After the apostles themselves, as we see them in their writings and in the Acts, who is there better than the Father of the Preachers to show us the laws of apostolic life? St Dominic in fact exhibits very strikingly certain realities which are most essential in such a life. They form what one might call the Law of the Five Beats. The more one meditates on it, the more one comes to think that it deserves to be classical.

Today the first ‘beat’ in order of time does not seem, for most apostles, to be contemplative withdrawal into God. They are in the world, they have experience of it, and grace presses them to proclaim the gospel to it. They begin with what was for St Dominic the second and the fourth ‘beats': they can already taste the experience of combat for the faith.