"O, Father, give us holy ministers for Your altar, who
shall be attentive
and fervent guardians of the Eucharist, the Sacrament of
the supreme gift of
Christ for the redemption of
the world. Amen." - Pope Benedict
XVI
These words were written 110 years ago on July
28, 1907, on the morning of
Fr Willie Doyle’s ordination to the
priesthood in Miltown Park, County Dublin.
"My loving Jesus, on this the morning of
my Ordination
to the priesthood,
I wish to place in Your Sacred Heart,
in gratitude for all that You have
done for me, the resolution from
this day forward to go straight to
holiness. My earnest wish and
firm resolve is to strive with might and
main to become a saint."
And on 28 July 1914, the 7th anniversary of his
ordination, he wrote:
"At Exposition Jesus spoke clearly in my soul, ‘Do the
hard thing for
my sake BECAUSE it is hard’. I also felt urged
to perform all my
priestly
duties with great fervour to obtain grace for other priests
to do the
same, e.g. the Office, that priests may say theirs
well."
Fr Doyle’s last entry in his diary was made on the 10th
anniversary
of his ordination (and 3 weeks prior to his death) on 28 July
1917:
"I have again offered myself to
Jesus as His Victim to do with
me
absolutely
as He pleases.
I will try to take all that happens,
no matter
from whom it comes, as sent to me by Jesus
and will bear
suffering,
heat, cold, etc., with joy as part of my
immolation,
in reparation
for the sins of priests. From this day I
shall try bravely
to bear
all little pains in this spirit. A strong
urging to
this."
Prayer for Priests
composed by Fr Willie Doyle
O my God, pour out in abundance Thy spirit of sacrifice upon
Thy priests.
It is both their glory and their duty to become victims,
to be burnt up for souls, to live without ordinary joys, to be
often
the objects of distrust, injustice, and
persecution.
The words they say every day at the altar, “This is my Body,
this is my Blood,” grant them to apply to themselves: “I am no
longer
myself, I am Jesus, Jesus crucified. I am, like the bread and
wine,
a substance no longer itself, but by consecration
another.”
O my God, I burn with desire for the sanctification of Thy priests.
I wish all the priestly hands which touch Thee were hands whose
touch
is gentle and pleasing to Thee, that all the mouths uttering such
sublime words at the altar should never descend to speaking
trivialities.
Let priests in all their person stay at the level of their lofty
functions,
let every man find them simple and great, like the Holy Eucharist,
accessible to all yet above the rest of men. O my God, grant them
to carry
with them from the Mass of today, a thirst for the Mass of
tomorrow,
and grant them, ladened themselves with gifts,
to share these abundantly with their fellow men. Amen.
Top
painting: Priest at the Altar ~ Francois Marius
Garnet
Bottom
painting: Holy Eucharist and Fruit ~ Jan de Heem
