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 a saint”. What might not have been done in that time!

COMMENT: These notes were taken in 1907 during the 30-day spiritual exercises which had such a deep and long lasting impact on Fr Doyle.

Fr Doyle had a deep insight into the human condition, into his own condition. He recognised the tendency we all have to postpone our reform, to imagine that some future time will allow us to serve God better and that in some other mythical future we will set about the task of becoming saints.

But as the Imitation of Christ says:

The place avails little, if the spirit of fervour be wanting…if you do not establish yourself in Me, you can change dwelling, but you will not better yourself

The reality is that the time to set about our conversion is now and the place is here. We should not rely on some future ideal state that really will never occur.

As for the lost time, well, Fr Doyle certainly made up for that! So too did St Teresa of Avila, who only definitively placed herself on the right path after many years of religious life. She had received many graces in her early life, but even after receiving these graces she gave up prayer altogether for a full year. Here is her prayer to redeem lost time:

O my God! Source of all mercy! I acknowledge Your sovereign power. While recalling the wasted years that are past, I believe that You, Lord, can in an instant turn this loss to gain. Miserable as I am, yet I firmly believe that You can do all things. Please restore to me the time lost, giving me Your grace, both now and in the future, that I may appear before You in “wedding garments.”

St Teresa of Avila