God sometimes seems to ask the impossible, a sorrow, a cross. Oh! it would crush me! How can this be? How? Lord, I do not know how, but You do. I will trust You always.
Virtues
April 23, 2024
Work for Jesus! Yes, though the weary head may ache and the tired brain refuse to act. Work on, work on; the years slip by and soon the hour of toil will cease for ever. Work for Jesus! How sweet these words! Not one effort escapes His watchful eye, and He will reward you with a joy unknown for what you suffer now. COMMENT: Fr Willie wrote these words in …
April 22, 2024
This morning I lay awake powerless to over come myself and to make my promised visit to the chapel. Then I felt prompted to pray; I said five aspirations and rose without difficulty. How many victories I could win by this easy and powerful weapon! COMMENT: Fr Willie was tough, so it’s a bit consoling to read about his difficulty getting out of bed. But in all of the things …
April 21, 2024
What more insignificant than the ordinary daily duties of religious life! Each succeeding hour brings with it some allotted task, yet in the faithful performance of these trifling acts of our everyday life lies the secret of true sanctity. Too often the constant repetition of the same acts, though in themselves they be of the holiest nature, makes us go through them in a mechanical way We meditate, we assist …
April 15, 2024
How sweet it is when our day is ended to find the body tired, the head heavy and jaded with work done for Jesus. The day has been a long one, bearing to us more than its share of disagreeable duties and unpleasant tasks; unexpected troubles have met us … but through it all we have unflinchingly plodded on, doing the Master’s work for love of Him.
April 13, 2024
Kneeling on the altar steps Jesus told me to devote one day of each week to the work of sanctification and reparation for His priests in each part of the world, e.g. Monday for the priests of Europe etc. COMMENT: Today’s quote was written in Fr Willie’s diary on this day in 1917. Fr Willie was something of a mystic. Again and again he reports in his diaries the messages …
April 12, 2024
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 …
April 10, 2024
If you are not yet strong enough to seek humiliations, just accept the little reverses that come. When you say or do awkward things, give them to our Lord and tell Him you are glad of them. Say: “All these are humiliations, so they must be good for me.”
April 9, 2024
No one is holy who is not fervent. But the fervour of the holy is not an impetuous, noviciate first-fervour, which does not and cannot last; it is not a fervour that multiplies resolutions and piles up pious practices that bow one to the ground in disgust and despair; it is not a fizzling “ginger-beer” fervour that disappears as soon as it appears, but an ardent zeal inspired by reason …
April 6, 2024
If my resurrection is to be a real one and is to produce fruit, it must be external, so that all may see I am not the same man, that my life is changed in Christ. COMMENT: Just as Christ rose from the dead, in a sense we too must continuously rise from sin, from spiritual death. Fr Doyle makes an extremely important point in today’s quote – if the …
April 1, 2024