I feel drawn still more to the life of “interior union.” To acquire this I must practise the following: 1 . Constant and profound recollection. 2. To keep my thoughts always, if possible, centred on Jesus in my heart. 3. To avoid worry or anxiety about future things. 4. To avoid useless conversation. 5. Great guard over my eyes, not reading or looking at useless things. COMMENT: Fr Doyle’s programme …
Virtues
May 2, 2015
I do not know if I have told you of a scheme which I have in my mind to help poor boys who are anxious to be priests. Before the war I came in contact with a number of very respectable lads and young men, whose one desire was to work for God and the salvation of souls, but who, for want of means, were not able to pursue …
April 26, 2015
I think I can say with truth that I have now no desire or wish except His. I have told Him that He may do just as He pleases with me, and take all, even my life. This has brought me great peace and a sense of great security in the midst of danger, since I know I am in His hands. COMMENT: Fr Doyle wrote these words in April …
April 25, 2015
St Fidelis of Sigmaringen 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 …
April 24, 2015
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, 2015
I wish I could write to you at length about grace. It is a fascinating subject. You are quite right in calling it “a participation of the divine nature,” since Scripture uses almost the same words to describe it. A comparison of the Fathers of the Church helps to explain things a little. A piece of iron, they say, placed in a fire does not in reality change its nature, …
April 8, 2015
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 much continuously rise from sin, from spiritual death. Fr Doyle makes an extremely important point in today’s quote – if …
April 6, 2015
Don’t be one of those who give God everything but one little corner of their heart on which they put up a notice board with the inscription: “Trespassers not allowed.” COMMENT: Perhaps Fr Doyle’s lines today get to the heart of the difference between the saints and the rest of us. We may want to love God and we may try our best, albeit with many falls and weaknesses. Yet …
March 8, 2015
I am suffering much in every way, most of all, perhaps, from sheer fatigue. As regards food and lodging I am not badly off, but the discomforts of the life would be long to tell. However, like St. Paul I can say that I superabound with joy in all my tribulations; for I know that they come from God’s hand and that they are working out some plan of His …
March 6, 2015
St John Vianney Press on bravely and don’t mind the scratches, even when they come from human nails! COMMENT: We must always push on in our spiritual lives. Often this will involve some difficulty, not least difficulty in overcoming ourselves! But there is also a particular kind of difficulty that comes from others, namely criticism or jokes about religious zeal. Naturally an indiscreet or unbalanced zeal must be controlled and …
March 4, 2015