Every grace we get enlightens the understanding and strengthens the will. When the understanding is enlightened, we have the awful alternative of cooperating with or rejecting the inspirations of grace. This we are either doing or not doing all the day long. God will not compel us, He will not interfere with our freedom, it must be our own choice. St. Paul was struck down when he received the inspiration. …
Saints
January 25, 2024
There is nothing better than the practice of aspirations, steadily growing in number. Keep a little book and enter them once a day. . . . I would like you to keep count of these little acts like the aspirations, but don’t go too fast; build up and do not pull down. COMMENT: The use of spiritual aspirations – short heartfelt prayers which remind us that we are in the …
January 24, 2024
I should examine all my actions, taking Jesus as my model and example. What a vast difference between my prayer and His; between my use of time, my way of speaking, walking, dealing with others, etc., and that of the child Jesus! If I could only keep Him before my eyes always, my life would be far different from what it has been. COMMENT: The incarnation was one of the …
January 23, 2024
Even as a child I was convinced that one day God would give me the grace of martyrdom. When quite small I read and re-read every martyr’s life in the twelve volumes of Butler’s Lives of the Saints, and longed and prayed to be a martyr, and I have often done so ever since. As years went on, the desire grew in intensity, and even now the sufferings of the …
January 21, 2024
Jesus knows I have only one wish in this world: to love Him and Him alone. For the rest He has carte blanche to do as He pleases in my regard. I just leave myself in His loving hands, and so have no anxiety or care, but great peace of soul. Take, O Lord, and receive my liberty, my health and strength, my limbs, my flesh, my blood, my very …
January 16, 2024
Each morning at Holy Communion invite Jesus, with all the love and fervour you can, to enter into your heart and dwell there during the day as in a tabernacle, making of your heart a living tabernacle which will be very dear to Him. COMMENT: All of the saints and great spiritual writers have been devoted to the Eucharist. We see this devotion also in the life of Fr Doyle …
January 12, 2024
Live for the day, but let it be a generous day. Have you ever tried giving God one day in which you refused him nothing, a day of absolute generosity? COMMENT: One theme that arises frequently in Fr Doyle’s writing is that of generosity. He felt he was called to greater generosity with God. What does this mean? Obviously it means an even more determined battle against sin. Can we …
January 11, 2024
Today is the anniversary of the death of the Servant of God Fr Paul Ginhac SJ who died on this day in 1895. Fr Ginhac was a French Jesuit whose life and example had an impact on the spirituality of Fr Doyle. At any rate, he was sufficiently impressed with Fr Ginhac’s virtues that he translated a 380 page official biography of Fr Ginhac from French into English and organised …
January 10, 2024
It is a mother whose gentle care was ever round you, whose arms were open wide that you might nestle on her bosom and tell a mother’s heart your joys and childish sorrows. Well now do you recall the thousand little ways that love for you was shown, the welcome smile, the kindly word, the soft kiss implanted on your cheek. COMMENT: Fr Doyle clearly loved his own mother and …
January 8, 2024
Today is the feast of St Charles of Mount Argus, a Dutch Passionist priest who spent about 30 years of his life in Dublin, dying here in 1893 at the age of 71. He greatly loved by the people of Dublin, primarily because of his humility and simplicity. He was not a great preacher, but he was extremely gentle in the confessional. Like many of those who excel in the …
January 5, 2024