Dominican Father Robert Ombres former Procurator General of his Order is currently
based in Oxford, England. His special interests in Roman Catholic canon law, comparative
canon law and Church-State relations were recently recognised when he was appointed
the 'Raymond of Penyafort Fellow in Canon Law at Blackfriars Hall, University of Oxford'. Despite
this legal background , while in Rome recently ,Father Ombres did not shy away from
speaking to Veronica Scarisbrick about a blissful Dominican from his Order's glorious
past . He's Fra Angelico whose feast day the Church remembers each year on the 18th
February. Asked to explain the special charism of this Friar, Father Ombres highlights
how one of the many mottos of the Dominican Order: ".. is to give to others the fruit
of our contemplation and painting ... first to be communicated and then to be precisely
the fruit of contemplation.... because vision is one of the elements of contemplation
..traditionally for us heaven will mean the beatific vision.."
Famously Fra
Angelico featured angels in his paintings, among the more well known are his depictions
of the Annunciation and of the dancing angels, but the question that comes to mind
is why he was known as "Angelico ". Father Ombres tells us there are many reasons
for his being known as the angelic painter and then as the angelic friar: " ... because
of the purity , the holiness of his own life ... the subject matter ..the extraordinary
beauty , purity reflected .."