Sunday and Monday last were days of wonderful grace for me, as if the Hunter of souls had run His quarry down and so surrounded it with the coils of His love that all escape was impossible. Alas! Does he not well know how that foolish hare will break loose and escape again so soon, spoiling all the plans of the patient Hunter. Still Jesus cannot pass close to the …
Ireland
June 20, 2021
Venerable Matt Talbot I do not want, in fact I forbid you, to be imprudent in the matter of corporal penances. But, my dear child, if you let a whole fortnight go by without any self-inflicted pain, can you honestly look Jesus in the face and say, “I am like to Him”? COMMENT: The idea of self-inflicted pain is not popular in contemporary spirituality. Oddly enough though, it seems …
June 7, 2021
Dear Sir — One is often struck, on glancing over the papers, at the numerous appeals made to provide ‘comforts for our troops,’ but no one ever seems to think that the souls of those who have fallen in battle may possibly be in need of much greater comfort than the bodies of their comrades who survive. With all the spiritual help now at their disposal, even in the very …
May 26, 2021
I did not write because I had nothing but disappointment, opposition, cold shower-baths and crosses to chronicle…Your news about the success in England is glorious, and yet I am assured that mine will come in Dublin if ever a house is opened. … I am confident the real difficulty will be to keep the men out. I never realised till I got on the mission staff the immense amount of …
May 20, 2021
Blessed John Sullivan Today is the feast of Blessed John Sullivan, a contemporary of Fr Doyle. Blessed John had a different personality to that of Fr Doyle, but as contemporaries with the same training much of their spirituality is in common. Both were very humble, very cheerful and very ascetic. One of Fr Sullivan’s most popular maxims, very much in line with Fr Doyle’s thought, was: Take life in instalments, …
May 8, 2021
Blessed Edmund Rice Having completed his course of philosophy, Willie returned to Clongowes in 1901 for another period of prefecting. Here he remained for two years, and he was then transferred to the teaching staff of Belvedere College, Dublin, where he spent a fruitful year of labour. For, as the immediate preparation for the priesthood drew near, zeal for souls that was afterwards to become so strong and ardent, began …
May 5, 2021
Sr Clare Crockett Sr Clare Crockett, a religious of the Servant Sisters of the Home of the Mother, died on this day in 2016. She was only 33. She was a typical religiously disinterested teenager from Derry, Northern Ireland, when she had a completely unexpected and powerful encounter with the Lord on Good Friday in the year 2000. She was a talented actress and budding TV presenter with a bright …
April 16, 2021
St Patrick I beg of God whom I love to grant me that I may shed my blood with those strangers and captives for His name’s sake, even though I be without burial itself, or my corpse be most miserably divided, limb by limb, amongst dogs and fierce beasts, or the birds of the air devour it. I think it most certain that if this happens to me, I shall …
March 17, 2021
John McGuinness Contrary to popular perception, there was an extraordinary flourishing of holiness in Ireland in the 19th and early 20th Century. Yes, there were problems in the Church and in the country at that time, but this does not take away from the inspiring witness of so many in that period. Many of the men and women of this period are well known and loved, including figures such …
February 13, 2021
Ellen Organ – Little Nellie of Holy God Kneeling there I asked her what God wanted from me, when I heard an interior voice clearly repeating, “Love Him, love Him.” The following day she seemed to rebuke me, when leaving the cemetery, for the careless way I performed most of my spiritual duties, and to say that God was displeased with this and wanted great fervour and perfection in them. …
February 2, 2021