St Jerome in the wilderness Don’t dwell on what you have not done, for I think that want of confidence in His willingness to forgive our shortcomings pains Him very much, but rather lift up your heart and think what you are going to do for Him now. You know the secret of making a short life very long in His eyes, and a life of few opportunities crammed full …
Saints
September 30, 2014
Don’t let the devil spoil the work by making you fret and worry. COMMENT: This line from Fr Doyle is taken from a much longer letter of spiritual direction, the specifics of which are unlikely to be relevant to many of the readers of this website. But this line, about the father of lies, and his capacity to make us worry, is relevant for us all… One of the characteristics …
September 28, 2014
St Vincent de Paul For fifteen years has Jesus been waiting for me to return to Him, to return to the fervour of my first year of religious life. During that time how many pressing and loving invitations has He not given me? What lights and inspirations, remorse of conscience, and how many good resolves which were never carried into effect. O my God, I feel now as if I …
September 27, 2014
St Pio of Pietrelcina It is indeed easy to condemn oneself to death, to make a generous offering of self-immolation; but to carry out the execution daily is more than most can do. . . . Go on bravely, don’t expect too much from yourself, for God often leaves one powerless in acts of self-conquest in order to make one humble and to have more recourse to Him. Remember above …
September 23, 2014
The Call of St Matthew by Caravaggio We must love God with our whole heart. Can He be loved otherwise? Is it too much that a finite heart should love infinite Beauty? I fail in this wholehearted love if I keep back anything from Him, if I am determined not to pass certain limits as proof of my love, if I absolutely refuse to sacrifice certain things which He asks, …
September 21, 2014
St John Houghton A devotion which does not consist in any special form of prayer nor in doing anything in particular more than to listen to inspirations, is devotion to the Holy Spirit of God. And does it not commend itself very specially to religious? For, as the work of Creation belongs preeminently to the Father and that of Redemption to the Son, so the work of our Sanctification and …
September 20, 2014
St Joseph the Worker Try and remember that sanctification means daily, hourly, hard work, and this unflinchingly, when weariness comes. COMMENT: Fr Doyle engaged in this daily, hourly hard work in his ceaseless quest for sanctity, always knowing, however, that God loved him and supplied him with the grace he needed. Fr Doyle’s quote today brings to mind the famous prayer that St Pius X wrote to honour St Joseph. …
September 19, 2014
St Robert Bellarmine, Doctor of the Church A deadly pitfall lies hidden in the desire of some to pour themselves out in works of zeal for God’s glory, to which the evil spirit not uncommonly urges those whom he sees full of zeal. It is evident even to one little versed in the way of the spiritual life that a multiplicity of external occupations, even though good and meritorious in …
September 17, 2014
I realise in a way I never did before that God created me for His service, that He has a strict right that I should serve Him perfectly, and that every moment of my life is His and given to me for the one end of praising and serving Him. I recall with horror how often I have wandered from this my end, what an appalling amount of time I …
September 13, 2014
If I do not begin to serve God as I ought now, when shall I do so? Shall I ever? This retreat is a time of special grace, and if my cooperation is wanting, Jesus may pass by and not return. The devil has made me put off my thorough conversion for seventeen years, making me content myself with the resolution of “later on really beginning in earnest and becoming …
September 12, 2014