Originally printed in Catholic Exchange on August 8, 2019
Told by Sean Fitzpatrick
Late one night, St. Dominic sat up to write deep within St. Sixtus priory. A noisy night it was, with growling clouds and growing shadows, but still, St. Dominic sat up to write. A single, quivering candle lit his page and his sober vigil. Not even the unruly elements could check the rapidity of his pen or dull the purpose of the Preacher. There he wrote in a ruddy patch surrounded by gloom; and there, in that dark dormitory, the Prince of Darkness was hid, grinding his soul to find the saint awake and writing through the night. No premonition chilled the bones of St. Dominic; but anon, a figure came loping into the candlelight that would offer any man, howsoever magnanimous he be, some astonishment.
The pen was laid upon the page. The snow-white robes were smoothed for war. St. Dominic raised his eyes once more as a shaggy bulk pushed into his candle’s glowing globe. A great shape loomed, covered with coarse hair where fearsome teeth and fiery eyes flashed forth, and gangly limbs dangled beneath a crooked back — ’twas the Devil in form of an Ape.
St. Dominic beheld this rival, took up his quill, and still sat up to write. The Ape unleashed a savage shout and smashed its paws on the flagstones, beating its chest, shaking the cell with its roar, while a terrible song issued from its terrible mouth:
Dost thou here write when all do sleep? O vanity of vanity, To drive men to insanity, With teachings of inanity– Far better would it be to sleep!
St. Dominic raised not his head and bade the Devil-Ape, “Be still.” The Monkey raged around the desk, snarling and scratching, with thump and thud on stone, and uttered another vile verse:
Dost thou here muse when all do sleep? O, thou, dim-witted Dominic, Thou dost neglect the poor and sick, For thine own liking dost thou pick– Far better would it be to sleep!
St. Dominic’s meditation remained intact. He raised a hand and, scolding, said, “Be still.”
The Ape gawked and gaped as it slapped the walls and pounded the ground, shattering the silence with its chattering and its loathsome rhyme:
Dost thou here pray when all do sleep? O scribbling scrabbling Pharisee, Are thy prayers of such quality They merit immortality? Far better would it be to sleep!
St. Dominic was not afraid. Instead he laid his finger to his lips and spake, “Be still.”
The Monkey then racked that monkish cell with screams that made it shudder in every stone. Up and down the room it careened, teeth gnashing ear-to-ear, and wailing aloud until St. Dominic said, “Enough.”
The Ape froze in its frenzy as Dominic commanded it to take up the candle in its hand. “Thy name,” the prior sternly pronounced, “was Lucifer before thy fall, and light again thou now shalt bear and be, at least, of some use.”
The sheepish Ape trembled beneath this sentence, and took up the guttering candle in its claws; and there it stood and stooped, like a thing bewitched, casting light on the work of St. Dominic who wrote on at ease. The Devil was in dismay—hour after hour passed, and still the Ape held aloft the light and still the saint wrote on. But as the night wore on, the Ape watched the flame chase down the wick and the waxy pillar melt. It cursed its fate as it glared at the glim and wished that the fire were burning less nigh to its hand. But no sound it made—too a-feared to dare defy the word of Dominic.
Then heat began to sting its fingers. The flame was licking its hand! A howl of pain broke from the Ape with a shriek of hate as fire flowed up its hairy arm. It lashed and writhed and rolled its eyes, for consumed it was with hellfire from head to toe. Again it thundered at the indifferent St. Dominic and swirled in a blaze of wrath.
The saint then responded, “Begone!”
St. Dominic took up a stick and beat the Ape across its back. With blows that resounded like those upon a bloated bladder, St. Dominic chastised the Ape; and with each crack, the fire and smoke flared and fell until the Ape was reduced to nothing more than a pile of sour-smelling ash.
St. Dominic put by his rod and opened wide the casement boards, and found dawn blushing in the sky’s pale cheek. A bell saluted the sun, and the blessed father closed up his book and to the chapel went straightway. But as he went, his mind turned on a wondrous truth: the fallen Fiend must always serve the servants of the Lord High God.
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