Solid virtue is so called because it is formed by amassing together a facility in repeated acts. Hence the practice of any virtue is not the less meritorious because it is easy. Quite the contrary. The merit depends on the intention we had when we determined to practise the virtue, and not on the amount of pain it costs.

COMMENT: Here we see once again the tremendous balance of Fr Doyle. Solid virtue comes from practicing virtue time and time again, especially in little things. Big once-off actions, while they may be meritorious, are not the essence of well grounded virtue and holiness which comes from doing ordinary tasks with the right intention.

In this Fr Doyle was quite like St Francis de Sales who taught that even small, simple acts performed with love were of great merit.

Here is a description of St Francis’ view of the matter from his great friend and disciple Jean Pierre Camus, taken from the book The Spirit of St Francis de Sales:

He considered, as we have seen, that the degree of the supernatural in any virtue could not be decided by the greatness or smallness of the external act, since an act in itself altogether trivial, may be performed with much grace and charity, while a very brilliant and dazzling good work may be animated by but a very feeble spark of love of God, the intensity of which is, after all, the only rule by which to ascertain its true value in His sight.

St Francis de Sales