Jebbies and skunks?! It’s more like Shadowy Conspirators and Awesome Penguin Heroes!
Being only a spiritual Dominican and lately baptised, I have no authority on which to base my assertions. All I can tell you is that I know them to be true from listening to almost every lecture given by Irish and North American Dominicans, and reading many biographies on Dominican saints. Though I be a total amateur, the reality of the spirit really gets imparted over time via books and study.
Now, Jesuits and Dominicans differ very essentially in terms of contemplation.
A Jesuit will contemplate a scene by entering into it with such totality that he “becomes” one of the characters in the scene. He will become inebriated by the wine of the Wedding of Cana, and will see, smell, hear, and touch all the senses as a Guest; on the other hand, he might go so far and so deep into the blessed Virgin’s mind that he imagines he is the blessed Virgin by meditation. He asks our holy Saviour the questions, and tries to imagine Jesus Christ saying to him “what is that to thee? my hour is not yet come”! He will try extremely hard to know the circumstances: whether it was an open-air court, whether any torchlight was needed, whether there were men and women and children here or there, and the contours of the whole place: so he can better enter into the scene. A Jesuit “acts out” the scene as a player in the very sacred drama itself. He sees through the eyes of Mary or the Devil or our Lord, and uses all the angles and perspectives to say “yes” to God throughout the day, knowing what all the agents and actors were like intimately. He uses this contemplation to say “yes” or “no” to everything in the day, by himself and with total inward consideration, asking: “am I the devil today? am I Christ today? did I act like the Virgin today, or like a drunken guest?”
A Dominican will not enter the personality of each character in a scene he is contemplating. He will, instead, take the eagle’s-eye view and detach himself. Instead of looking at the Feast through the eyes of Mary, he will consider the tenderness of Mary’s concern for the guests and her love for Christ, wishing that His glory be manifest for the sake of her beloved Israel. The friar-preacher relates everything he sees to theological concepts, sometimes abstract indeed. He will see the Marriage of Cana and relates it to a thousand other events in Scripture: seeing water flowing from the Temple, and its relation to water turned into wine, or the water and blood flowing from Christ being the true water, and Christ the true Temple foreseen by Ezekiel. He will apply every single parable our Lord ever spoke, and try to put it together in a great logical puzzle, fitting it with the event at Cana. The waiter-boys carrying water jugs, and the guests in awe at the new wine of St. John’s Gospel become the angels the saints of Revelation. Everything is related theologically, philosophically, and in life, by way of study and contemplation. The Dominican takes what he has contemplated, and displays this theological puzzle for all other people to contemplate.
In my opinion, the Jesuit spirit of Cana would tend more toward teaching other individual people what the story said to him at X time on Y day in Z year. The Dominican spirit of Cana would tend more toward showing all the faithful what the story of Cana says to all generations, and how every symbol, event, person, type, and history in Scripture is related to it. Jesuits seem to be primarily pastoral and mystical in this contemplation, whereas Dominicans want strong theological truths to be made manifest to all who hear them preach.
Very broadly-speaking, a Dominican sermon based on some contemplation is a homiletic event, whereas a Jesuit sermon based on some contemplation is very pastoral and intimate. A Jesuit contemplates for his own soul’s perfection, and to give others the ability to relate Scriptural stories to their own subjective lives on Monday, June 13; whereas a Dominican contemplates for his own soul’s perfection, and to show others grand, universal, objective theological things he has extracted from contemplation. A Dominican contemplates solely so he can preach something new and teach the faithful something orthodox every day, and a Jesuit contemplates so he may better understand and other specific individuals may better understand as they live their personal lives.
Both a Jesuit novice and a Dominican priest have confirmed this comparison. Dominicans contemplate for the sake of the wider goal, and Jesuits contemplate for the sake of individual imagination and revelation. The former want to contemplate for the sake of general Truth being known to all peoples, and the latter want to contemplate so they can find out what the Lord is saying to Me, You, and Others on a specific day in a specific circumstance.
My source is a very trustworthy set of lectures from the 1980’s in the Dominican House of studies, from Washington, D.C.! It’s online if you want to listen, but it’s something like 24 hours of in-depth course material in history, philosophy, theology, and practice.
You’ve made my day!