James Ambrose Dominic Aylward

Who was James Ambrose Dominic Aylward?

James Ambrose Dominic Aylward OP was an English Catholic theologian and poet.

Born at Leeds, Yorkshire, on 4 April 1813, Aylward was educated at the Dominican priory of Hinckley, entered the Order of St Dominic, was ordained priest in 1836, became Provincial in 1850, first Prior of Woodchester in 1854, and provincial a second time in 1866.

He composed several pious manuals for the use of his community and A Novena for the Holy Season of Advent gathered from the prophecies, anthems, etc., of the Roman Missal and Breviary. He re-edited a Life of Blessed Virgin St Catherine of Sienna, translated from the Italian by the Dominican Father John Fen, and an English translation of Father Chocarne's Inner Life of Lacordaire. He died at Hinckley, on 5 October 1872. His essays On the Mystical Elements in Religion, and on Old and Modern Spiritism were edited posthumously by Cardinal Manning.

Aylward's principal monument is his translation of Latin hymns, most of which he contributed to The Catholic Weekly Instructor. In his Annus Sanctus, Orbey Shipley has reprinted many of them. He says of Father Aylward that he was "a cultivated and talented priest of varied powers and gifts."