Bl. Jane of Aza, The Mother of St. Dominic

I recently met a catechist and quickly noticed her remarkable ease in the classroom. She carried herself with the calm authority of someone deeply experienced — striking that elusive balance between care, attentiveness, and gentle correction. It was the kind of balance I’ve only ever seen in a mother.

After class, while reflecting on Bl. Jane of Aza, the mother of St. Dominic, I struck up a conversation with the catechist. To my surprise — but not really — she told me she had thirteen children: twelve on earth and one in heaven. Their ages range from eight to thirty-three.

She went on to share her family’s story. An only child raised by a single mother, she married a man who had been adopted in difficult circumstances. Neither of them had any firsthand experience of large or strong families. After the birth of their second child, she slowly began returning to the practice of her Catholic faith. Though raised in the Church, she now found herself undergoing a deeper, more personal conversion. Around that time, she told her husband, “We should have a big family: four or maybe even five children.” He agreed, having also recently converted from the LDS Church to Catholicism. Over the years, they began to recognize the unique gift each child was — each with his own personality, talents, and challenges.

I’ve always admired big families, so I was deeply moved by their story. And it helped me imagine the family dynamic in the Guzmán household. Bl. Jane, born of noble lineage in the d’Aza family, married the Venerable Felix de Guzmán. Their home must have been a true domestic church, deeply rooted in prayer and charity. The evidence is compelling: three of their children gave their lives entirely to Christ. St. Dominic, of course, became the founder of the Order of Preachers. Bl. Mannes followed his brother in the Sacred Preaching. The third, Venerable Anthony, became a diocesan priest who devoted himself to the care of the poor and the sick.

The love of poverty shared by all three Guzmán brothers had to be instilled in them from childhood — surely by their mother, Bl. Jane. Tradition also holds that she passed on her deep devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. That devotion bore fruit: St. Dominic had such a close relationship with Our Lady that she appeared to him and the early friars, giving him the holy Rosary, and bestowing heavenly graces and miracles upon the fledgling Order. So strong was this Marian character that our Order was once affectionately known as the Order of the Blessed Virgin Mary.

If St. Dominic is our Holy Father — an image of Christ within our Order — then Bl. Jane is, without doubt, a figure of our Holy Mother. On her feast, we ask Bl. Jane and the Blessed Virgin Mary to intercede for our families: that fathers and mothers may not shrink from their sacred duty to preach the Word of God to their children, and that many sons and daughters may respond to the call to enter our Order.