What impressed me most in the meditation on the Nativity was the thought that Jesus could have been born in wealth and luxury, or at least with the ordinary comforts of life, but He chose all that was hard, unpleasant and uncomfortable. This He did for me, to show me the life I must lead for Him. If I want to be with Christ, I must lead the life …
Gospel
December 25, 2011
Jesus heals the lame “I have called upon Thee in the day of my trouble” (Psalm 85. 7). Jesus is our comforter. What burden is there which He cannot lighten? What cross that He cannot make sweet? Be our troubles what they may, if only we will call on Jesus and implore His aid, we shall find our sufferings lessened and the rough ways smoothed for our bleeding feet. COMMENT: …
December 18, 2011
What must have been Mary’s thoughts when first she felt the infant child within her womb, and realised that from her pure blood He had fashioned to Himself a human form? She His Mother, He her Son! What sweet converse between the two, what words of love, of ardent, tender love, the promptings of a heart so pure and good and holy. COMMENT: We are exactly three weeks from …
December 4, 2011
The life of Jesus was a continual prayer. Even during His public life He began, continued and ended everything He did by prayer, besides devoting whole nights and days to communing with His Father. If we want our work for souls to be fruitful, we must bring prayer into it. If our children are not all that they ought to be, the cause may not be far to seek. …
November 22, 2011
"I am with you always, even to the end of the world." Remember the devil is a bad spiritual director, and you may always recognise his apparently good suggestions by the disturbances they cause in the soul. Our Lord would never urge you to turn away from a path which is leading you nearer to Himself, nor frighten you with the prospect of future unbearable trials. If they do come, …
November 21, 2011
I have long had the feeling that, since the world is growing so rapidly worse and worse and God has lost His hold, as it were, upon the hearts of men, He is looking all the more earnestly and anxiously for big things from those who are faithful to Him still. He cannot, perhaps, gather a large army round His standard, but He wants every one in it to …
November 20, 2011
We can never sufficiently thank Him for so completely showing us in the Garden that He was a man by praying to escape the storm. COMMENT: Jesus showed us His humanity on many different occasions, but nowhere more movingly than during the Agony in the Garden. As Fr Doyle tells us in today’s quote, there is nothing wrong with asking God to relieve our sufferings and to spare us …
November 19, 2011
The greatest thirst of Jesus on the Cross was his thirst for souls. He saw then the graces and inspirations He would give me to save souls for Him. In what way shall I correspond and console my Saviour? The thought has been very much in my mind during this week that Jesus asks from me the sacrifice of all the pleasures of the world — such as summer …
November 6, 2011
During all these long years Jesus has been standing bound at the pillar, while I have cruelly scourged Him by my ingratitude and neglect of my vocation. Each action carelessly done, the hours spent in sleep, each moment wasted, have been so many stripes on my Saviour’s bleeding body. He has been bearing all this to save me from His Father’s just anger. And all the while I have …
November 5, 2011
Fr Doyle wrote the following notes on the “hidden life” of Jesus as a young boy and man in Nazareth. These reflections from the second week of the Spiritual Exercises of 1907 are so direct and readily applicable to our own lives that they do not require any further comment or elaboration. During the reflection on the Hidden Life I got a light that here was something in which …
October 22, 2011