I want you to stick to two things: the aspirations and the tiny acts of self-conquest. Count them and mark them daily. You need nothing else to make you a saint. The weekly total, growing bigger as you persevere, will show you how fast you are growing in perfection.

COMMENT: Fr Doyle reveals his Jesuit training in today’s quote. In the Spiritual Exercises St Ignatius recommends making lists and monitoring daily progress.

The claim that “you need nothing else to make you a saint” is a rather big claim! Yet there is certainly something in it. Love shows itself in actions. As St Josemaria Escriva wrote:

There is a story of a soul who, on saying to our Lord in prayer, ‘Jesus, I love you,’ heard this reply from heaven: ‘Love means deeds, not sweet words.’ Think if you also could deserve this gentle reproach.

The deeds we are called to do are normally not big deeds, but daily actions of fidelity and self-sacrifice, both in our dealings with God and in our dealings with each other. But unless we actively try to conquer ourselves and make these sacrifices we really won’t do them. We will not genuinely progress without a clear strategic objective to do so. It’s too easy for us to fail and give up if our aspirations to self-sacrifice are vague and uncommitted. Keeping a list and striving for progress can be a great help in this regard, and as we exercise our capacity for love and generosity we will inevitably love more and become progressively more generous, opening up ever more vistas for love, service and holiness. As St Benedict said in his Rule:

But if a certain strictness results from the dictates of equity for the amendment of vices or the preservation of charity, do not be at once dismayed and fly from the way of salvation, whose entrance cannot but be narrow (Matt. 7:14). For as we advance in the religious life and in faith, our hearts expand and we run the way of God’s commandments with unspeakable sweetness of love.

But this approach of counting sacrifices or offerings made to God does not suit everybody’s temperament. Those who are scrupulous or anxious may not be helped by it. But it clearly suited Fr Doyle’s own militant temperament. In fact, he not only wrote down his sacrifices, he also carried a set of beads on which they would be counted. He was in good company in this practice – his contemporary St Therese (they were born 2 months apart) also used beads to count her sacrifices.