Since we are travellers and pilgrims in the world, let us ever ponder on the end of the road, that is of our life, for the end of our roadway is our home (St Columban, 8th sermon).
Showing posts with label Fr William Doyle SJ. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fr William Doyle SJ. Show all posts
GospelJohn 6:51-58(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
Jesus said to the crowd:
“I am the
living bread that came down from heaven. If anyone eats of this bread, he
will live for ever. And the bread that I will give for the life of the
world is my flesh.”
The Jews
then disputed among themselves, saying, “How can this man give us his
flesh to eat?”So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son
of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my
blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.For my flesh is true food, and my blood is
true drink.Whoever
feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him.As the living Father sent me,
and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will
live because of me.This
is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers
ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live for ever.”
[Source: Jesuits in Britain; link no longer there]
During his homily in St Peter's Basilica on 26 April 2015 at the ordination Mass of 19 new priests Pope Francis said: Indeed, in being configured to Christ the eternal High Priest, and joined to the priesthood of their Bishop, they will be consecrated as true priests of the New Testament, to preach the Gospel, to shepherd God’s people, to preside at worship, and especially to celebrate the Lord’s Sacrifice.
In using the words 'being configured to Christ' Pope Francis was echoing what both St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI taught.
Pope Francis also spoke to the young men of the importance of being ministers of God's mercy, especially through the Sacrament of Penance and the Sacrament of the Sick, known before as Extreme Unction: Through the Sacrament of Penance you forgive sins in the name of Christ and the Church. And I, in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord and of his Spouse, the Holy Church, ask you all to never tire of being merciful. You are in the confessional to forgive, not to condemn! Imitate the Father who never tires of forgiving. With Chrism oil you will comfort the sick; in celebrating the sacred rites and raising up the prayer of praise and supplication at various hours of the day, you will become the voice of the People of God and of all humanity.
Sometimes being configured to Christ can mean for a priest that, like Jesus himself, he is called to the extent of living those same words in his own life, The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh. One such priest was Fr William Doyle SJ whose was killed on 16 August 1917.
Here is an account of the death of Fr Doyle, which took place in Belgium during the Battle of Passchendaele, also known as The Third Battle of Ypres, from the biography by Alfred O'Rahilly, a university professor who later became a priest:
Fr. Doyle had been engaged from early morning in the front line, cheering and consoling his men, and attending to the many wounded. Soon after 3 p.m. he made his way back to the Regimental Aid Post which was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having gone back to the rear some hours before. Whilst here word came in that an officer of the Dublins [editor's note: Royal Dublin Fusiliers, known as the 'The Dubs'] had been badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes later, at about a quarter to four, Mclnespie staggered into the Aid Post and fell down in a state of collapse from shell shock. Corporal Raitt went to his assistance and after considerable difficulty managed to revive him. His first words on coming back to consciousness were: “Fr. Doyle has been killed!” Then bit by bit the whole story was told. Fr. Doyle had found the wounded officer lying far out in a shell crater. He crawled out to him, absolved and anointed him, and then, half dragging, half carrying the dying man, managed to get him within the line. Three officers came up at this moment, and Mclnespie was sent for some water. This he got and was handing it to Fr. Doyle when a shell burst in the midst of the group, killing Fr. Doyle and the three officers instantaneously, and hurling Mclnespie violently to the ground. Later in the day some of the Dublins when retiring came across the bodies of all four. Recognising Fr. Doyle, they placed him and a Private Meehan, whom they were carrying back dead, behind a portion of the Frezenberg Redoubt and covered the bodies with sods and stones.
O'Rahilly
gives an account of the last Christmas Midnight Mass that Fr Doyle would
celebrate, an account that shows the Irish Jesuit carrying out two of the
responsibilities that Pope Francis spoke about in his homily above to those he
was about to ordain: especially to celebrate the Lord’s Sacrifice and Through
the Sacrament of Penance . . . to never tire of being merciful.
Fr. Doyle got permission from General
Hickie to have Midnight Mass for his men in the Convent. The chapel was a fine
large one, as in pre-war times over three hundred boarders and orphans were resident
in the Convent; and by opening folding-doors the refectory was added to the
chapel and thus doubled the available room. An hour before Mass every inch of
space was filled, even inside the altar rails and in the corridor, while
numbers had to remain in the open. Word had in fact gone round about the Mass,
and men from other battalions came to hear it, some having walked several miles
from another village.
Before the Mass there was strenuous Confession-work. “We were kept hard at work hearing confessions all the evening till nine o’clock” writes Fr. Doyle, “the sort of Confessions you would like, the real serious business, no nonsense and no trimmings. As I was leaving the village church, a big soldier stopped me to know, like our Gardiner Street [editor's note: where the Jesuit church in Dublin is located] friend, ‘if the Fathers would be sittin’ any more that night.’ He was soon polished off, poor chap, and then insisted on escorting me home. He was one of my old boys, and having had a couple of glasses of beer — ‘It wouldn’t scratch the back of your throat, Father, that French stuff’ — was in the mood to be complimentary. ‘We miss you sorely, Father, in the battalion’, he said, ‘we do be always talking about you’. Then in a tone of great confidence: ‘Look, Father, there isn’t a man who wouldn’t give the whole of the world, if he had it, for your little toe! That’s the truth’. The poor fellow meant well, but ‘the stuff that would not scratch his throat’ certainly helped his imagination and eloquence.
I reached the Convent a bit tired, intending to have a rest before Mass, but found a string of the boys awaiting my arrival, determined that they at least would not be left out in the cold. I was kept hard at it hearing Confessions till the stroke of twelve and seldom had a more fruitful or consoling couple of hours’ work, the love of the little Babe of Bethlehem softening hearts which all the terrors of war had failed to touch.”
The Mass itself was a great success and brought consolation and spiritual peace to many a war-weary exile. This is what Fr. Doyle says:
“I sang the Mass, the girls’ choir doing the needful. One of the Tommies [editor's note: 'Tommy' was the generic nickname for the ordinary soldier in the British Army], from Dolphin’s Barn [an area in Dublin city], sang the Adeste beautifully with just a touch of the sweet Dublin accent to remind us of home, sweet home, the whole congregation joining in the chorus. It was a curious contrast: the chapel packed with men and officers, almost strangely quiet and reverent (the nuns were particularly struck by this), praying .and singing most devoutly, while the big tears ran down many a rough cheek: outside the cannon boomed and the machine-guns spat out a hail of lead: peace and good will — hatred and bloodshed!
“It was a Midnight Mass none of us will ever forget. A good 500 men came to Holy Communion, so that I was more than rewarded for my work.”
+++
This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live for ever (John 6:58).
Royal Irish Rifles at the Somme, France, July 1916
Six days before he was killed Father Willie wrote to his father about an incident in which he carried out another priestly responsibility mentioned by Pope Francis in his homily: With Chrism oil you will comfort the sick.
A sad morning as casualties were heavy and many men came in dreadfully wounded. One man was the bravest I ever met. He was in dreadful agony, for both legs had been blown off at the knee But never a complaint fell from his lips, even while they dressed his wounds, and he tried to make light of his injuries. Thank God, Father, he said, I am able to stick it out to the end. Is it not all for little Belgium? The Extreme Unction [the old name for the Sacrament of the Sick when it was usually given when a person was dying), as I have noticed time and again, eased his bodily pain. I am much better now and easier, God bless you, he said, as I left him to attend a dying man. He opened his eyes as I knelt beside him: Ah! Fr. Doyle, Fr. Doyle, he whispered faintly, and then motioned me to bend lower as if he had some message to give. As I did so, he put his two arms round my neck and kissed me. It was all the poor fellow could do to show his gratitude that he had not been left to die alone and that he would have the consolation of receiving the Last Sacraments before he went to God. Sitting a little way off I saw a hideous bleeding object, a man with his face smashed by a shell, with one if not both eyes torn out. He raised his head as I spoke. Is that the priest? Thank God, I am all right now. I took his blood-covered hands in mine as I searched his face for some whole spot on which to anoint him. I think I know better now why Pilate said Behold the Man when he showed our Lord to the people.
In the afternoon, while going my rounds, I was forced to take shelter in the dug-out of a young officer belonging to another regiment. For nearly two hours I was a prisoner and found out he was a Catholic from Dublin, and had been married just a month. Was this a chance visit, or did God send me there to prepare him for death, for I had not long left the spot when a shell burst and killed him? I carried his body out the next day and buried him in a shell hole, and once again I blessed that protecting Hand which had shielded me from his fate.
The trench warfare of World War I was a form of hell, where evil was present. But Jesus Christ the Risen Lord was present there too - and recognised by so many soldiers, particularly at the moment of death, through the presence of priests such as Fr Willie Doyle SJ, whose inspiring life I first learned about in kindergarten in the late 1940s. In celebrating Mass, in hearing confessions, in anointing dying soldiers, in burying those who had died in battle, priests were bringing hope and light, the hope and light that is Jesus himself, into the midst of an awful darkness. And in some cases these priests were called to be configured literally to the dying Christ so that they could say: the bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Today please pray for all priests, without whom we could not have the Bread of Life.
In most countries, including the Vatican, this solemnity, formerly
celebrated on the Thursday after Trinity Sunday, is now celebrated on the
Sunday after Trinity Sunday, this year replacing the Tenth Sunday in Ordinary
Time.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan, Scotland)
GospelMark 14:12-16, 22-26(English Standard Version, Anglicised)
And
on the first day of Unleavened Bread, when they sacrificed the Passover
lamb, his disciples said to Jesus, “Where will you have us go and prepare for
you to eat the Passover?”And he sent two of his disciples
and said to them, “Go into the city, and a man
carrying a jar of water will meet you. Follow him,and
wherever he enters, say to the master of the house, ‘The Teacher says,
Where is my guest room, where I may eat the Passover with my disciples?’And he will show you a large upper room furnished and ready;
there prepare for us.”And the disciples set out and
went to the city and found it just as he had told them, and they prepared the
Passover.
And
as they were eating, he took bread, and after blessing it broke it and
gave it to them, and said, “Take; this is my body.”And he took a
cup, and when he had given thanks he gave it to them, and they all drank
of it.And he said to them, “This is my blood of the covenant,
which is poured out for many.Truly, I say to you, I will not drink
again of the fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it new in the
kingdom of God.”
And when they had
sung a hymn, they went out to the Mount of Olives.
Alfred O'Rahilly in his Father William Doyle SJ, a biography of an Irish Jesuit who served as a chaplain in the British army in the First World War and who was killed on 16-17 August 1917, writes on page 474 about a Mass celebrated in the trenches. Normally he was not allowed to have Mass with the men there because of the danger.
On February 2nd [1917], however, he was able to offer the Holy Sacrifice in the trenches , his chapel being a dug-out capable of holding ten or a dozen. 'But my congregation numbered forty-six,' he says, 'the vacant space was small. How they all managed to squeeze in I cannot say. There was no question of kneeling down; the men simply stood silently and reverently round the little improvised altar of ammunition boxes, "glad," as one of them quaintly expressed it, "to have a say in it." Surely our Lord must have been glad also, for every one of the forty-six received Holy Communion, and went back to his post happy at heart and strengthened to face the hardships of these days and nights of cold.' What a difference the Real Presence made in the ministrations of a Catholic chaplain!
The Catechism of the Catholic Church, No 1374 states: The mode of Christ's presence under the
Eucharistic species is unique. It raises the Eucharist above all the sacraments
as "the perfection of the spiritual life and the end to which all the
sacraments tend." In the most blessed sacrament of the Eucharist "the
body and blood, together with the soul and divinity, of our Lord Jesus Christ
and, therefore,the whole Christ is
truly, really, and substantially contained." "This presence is
called 'real' - by which is not intended to exclude the other types of presence
as if they could not be 'real' too, but because it is presence in the fullest
sense: that is to say, it is a substantial
presence by which Christ, God and man, makes himself wholly and entirely
present."
The Solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ, popularly known by the Latin name Corpus Christi, celebrates this reality, the same reality that Fr Willie Doyle and the 46 soldiers celebrated in the trenches in Flanders, Belgium, on that cold Candlemas Day in 1917.
This is said to be the Church's oldest eucharistic hymn, composed in the seventh century in Bangor Abbey in what is now Northern Ireland, from which St Columban had left for mainland Europe in the previous century. It later found its way to the abbey in Bobbio in northern Italy, founded by St Columban and where he died in 615.
A legend from An Leabhar Breac, a mediaeval Irish document, says that the hymn was first sung by angels in St Seachnaill's Church (Domhnach Seachnaill), anglicised as 'Dunshaughlin', a town that is a twelve-minute drive from where I live in St Columban's, Dalgan Park, on the way into Dublin.
Here is the first stanza sung in the original Latin and then in English. Both videos are from Corpus Christi Watershed.
Extraordinary Form of the Mass
Traditional Latin Mass (TLM)
Second Sunday after Pentecost
The Complete Mass in Latin and English is here. (Adjust the date at the top of that page to 6-6-2021 if necessary).
Authentic beauty, however, unlocks the yearning of the human heart, the profound desire to know, to love, to go towards the Other, to reach for the Beyond.
This song was written in 1916, in the middle of the Great War, later to be known as World War One. The lyricist, Fred E. Weatherly, also wrote the words to Danny Boy. Picardy is a region in France that includes the battlegrounds of the Somme Offensive that began on 1 July 1916 and ended in November. A million men were killed or wounded.
Countless young wives of every social background lost their husbands, many young children lost their fathers, countless young women lost their fiancés and sweethearts in this awful
conflict. Fr Willie Doyle wrote in letters to his father about two newly-wed soldiers killed in the war.
13 January 1917. I found the dying lad, he was not much more, so tightly jammed into a corner of the trench it was almost impossible to get him out. Both legs were smashed, one in two or three places, so his chances of life were small as there were other injuries as well. What a harrowing picture that scene would have made. A splendid young soldier, married only a month they told me, lying there pale and motionless in the mud and water with the life crushed out of him by a cruel shell.
10 August 2017. In the afternoon, while going my rounds, I was forced to take shelter in the dug-out of a young officer belonging to another regiment. He was a Catholic from Dublin, and had been married just a month. Was this a chance visit, or did God send me there to prepare him for death, for I had not long left the spot when a shell burst and killed him? I carried his body out next day and buried him in a shell hole, nad once again blessed that protecting hand which had shielded me from his fate.
Father Doyle himself was killed by a shell a week later on the night of 16-17 August.
Those extracts from his letters, originally published in Alfred O'Rahilly's biography, appear in To Raise the Fallen, published for the centennial of Fr Willie Doyle's death in 2017. Compiler-editor Patrick Kenny blogs about Father Doyle at Remembering Fr Willie Doyle SJ.
Readings(Jerusalem Bible: Australia,
England & Wales, India [optional], Ireland, New Zealand, Pakistan,
Scotland, South Africa)
GospelJohn 6:51-58 (New Revised Standard
Version, Anglicised Catholic Edition)
Jesus
said to the crowd:
I am the living bread that came down from heaven.
Whoever eats of this bread will live for ever; and the bread that I will give
for the life of the world is my flesh.’
The Jews then disputed among themselves, saying,
‘How can this man give us his flesh to eat?’
So Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you,
unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no
life in you. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life,
and I will raise them up on the last day; for my flesh is true food and my
blood is true drink. Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in
me, and I in them. Just as the living Father sent me, and I live because
of the Father, so whoever eats me will live because of me. This is the
bread that came down from heaven, not like that which your ancestors ate, and
they died. But the one who eats this bread will live for ever.’
During his homily in St Peter's
Basilica on 26 April 2015 at the ordination Mass of 19 new priests Pope
Francis said: Indeed, in being configured to Christ the eternal High
Priest, and joined to the priesthood of their Bishop, they will be consecrated
as true priests of the New Testament, to preach the Gospel, to shepherd God’s
people, to preside at worship, and especially to celebrate the Lord’s Sacrifice.
In using the words 'being configured to
Christ' Pope Francis was echoing what both St John Paul II and Pope Benedict
XVI taught.
Pope Francis also spoke to the young
men of the importance of being ministers of God's mercy, especially through the
Sacrament of Penance and the Sacrament of the Sick: Through the
Sacrament of Penance you forgive sins in the name of Christ and the Church. And
I, in the name of Jesus Christ the Lord and of his Spouse, the Holy Church, ask
you all to never tire of being merciful. You are in the confessional to
forgive, not to condemn! Imitate the Father who never tires of forgiving. With
Chrism oil you will comfort the sick; in celebrating the sacred rites and
raising up the prayer of praise and supplication at various hours of the day,
you will become the voice of the People of God and of all humanity.
Sometimes being configured to Christ
can mean for a priest that, like Jesus himself, he is called to the extent of
living those same words in his own life, The bread that I will
give for the life of the world is my flesh. One such priest was Fr
William Doyle SJ whose 101st death anniversary was on 16 August.
Here is an account of the death of Fr Doyle, which took place in Belgium during the Battle of Passchendaele, also
known as The Third Battle of Ypres, from the biography by Alfred O'Rahilly, a
university professor who later became a priest:
Fr. Doyle had been engaged from
early morning in the front line, cheering and consoling his men, and attending
to the many wounded. Soon after 3 p.m. he made his way back to the Regimental
Aid Post which was in charge of a Corporal Raitt, the doctor having gone back
to the rear some hours before. Whilst here word came in that an officer of the
Dublins [editor's note: Royal Dublin Fusiliers, known as the 'Dubs'] had been
badly hit, and was lying out in an exposed position. Fr. Doyle at once decided
to go out to him, and left the Aid Post with his runner, Private Mclnespie, and
a Lieutenant Grant. Some twenty minutes later, at about a quarter to four,
Mclnespie staggered into the Aid Post and fell down in a state of collapse from
shell shock. Corporal Raitt went to his assistance and after considerable
difficulty managed to revive him. His first words on coming back to
consciousness were: “Fr. Doyle has been killed!” Then bit by bit the whole
story was told. Fr. Doyle had found the wounded officer lying far out in a
shell crater. He crawled out to him, absolved and anointed him, and then, half
dragging, half carrying the dying man, managed to get him within the line.
Three officers came up at this moment, and Mclnespie was sent for some water.
This he got and was handing it to Fr. Doyle when a shell burst in the midst of
the group, killing Fr. Doyle and the three officers instantaneously, and
hurling Mclnespie violently to the ground. Later in the day some of the Dublins
when retiring came across the bodies of all four. Recognising Fr. Doyle, they
placed him and a Private Meehan, whom they were carrying back dead, behind a
portion of the Frezenberg Redoubt and covered the bodies with sods and stones.
Stretcher bearers, Passchendaele, August 1917 [Wikipedia]
Christmas Midnight Mass 1916
O'Rahilly
gives an account of the last Christmas Midnight Mass that Fr
Doyle would celebrate, an account that shows the Irish Jesuit carrying out two
of the responsibilities that Pope Francis spoke about in his homily above to
those he was about to ordain: especially
to celebrate the Lord’s Sacrifice and Through
the Sacrament of Penance . . . to never tire of being merciful.
Christmas itself
Fr. Doyle had the good luck of spending in billets. He got permission from
General Hickie to have Midnight Mass for his men in the Convent. The chapel was
a fine large one, as in pre-war times over three hundred boarders and orphans
were resident in the Convent; and by opening folding-doors the refectory was
added to the chapel and thus doubled the available room. An hour before Mass
every inch of space was filled, even inside the altar rails and in the
corridor, while numbers had to remain in the open. Word had in fact gone round
about the Mass, and men from other battalions came to hear it, some having
walked several miles from another village.
Before the Mass there was strenuous Confession-work. “We were kept hard at work
hearing confessions all the evening till nine o’clock” writes Fr. Doyle, “the
sort of Confessions you would like, the real serious business, no nonsense and
no trimmings. As I was leaving the village church, a big soldier stopped me to
know, like our Gardiner Street [editor's note: where the Jesuit church in
Dublin is located] friend, ‘if the Fathers would be sittin’ any more that
night.’ He was soon polished off, poor chap, and then insisted on
escorting me home. He was one of my old boys, and having had a couple of glasses
of beer — ‘It wouldn’t scratch the back of your throat, Father, that French
stuff’ — was in the mood to be complimentary. ‘We miss you sorely, Father, in
the battalion’, he said, ‘we do be always talking about you’. Then in a tone of
great confidence: ‘Look, Father, there isn’t a man who wouldn’t give the whole
of the world, if he had it, for your little toe! That’s the truth’. The poor
fellow meant well, but ‘the stuff that would not scratch his throat’ certainly
helped his imagination and eloquence.
I
reached the Convent a bit tired, intending to have a rest before Mass, but
found a string of the boys awaiting my arrival, determined that they at least
would not be left out in the cold. I was kept hard at it hearing Confessions
till the stroke of twelve and seldom had a more fruitful or consoling couple of
hours’ work, the love of the little Babe of Bethlehem softening hearts which
all the terrors of war had failed to touch.”
The Mass itself was a great success
and brought consolation and spiritual peace to many a war-weary exile. This is
what Fr. Doyle says:
“I sang the Mass, the girls’ choir
doing the needful. One of the Tommies [editor's note: 'Tommy' was the generic
nickname for the ordinary British soldier], from Dolphin’s Barn, sang the Adeste
beautifully with just a touch of the sweet Dublin accent to remind us of home,
sweet home, the whole congregation joining in the chorus. It was a curious
contrast: the chapel packed with men and officers, almost strangely quiet and
reverent (the nuns were particularly struck by this), praying .and singing most
devoutly, while the big tears ran down many a rough cheek: outside the cannon
boomed and the machine-guns spat out a hail of lead: peace and good will —
hatred and bloodshed!
“It was a Midnight Mass none of us
will ever forget. A good 500 men came to Holy Communion, so that I was more
than rewarded for my work.”
Royal Irish Rifles at the Somme, France, July 1916[Wikipedia]
Six days before he was killed Fr Doyle wrote to his father about an incident in which
he carried out another priestly responsibility mentioned by Pope Francis in his
homily: With Chrism oil you will comfort
the sick.
A sad morning as casualties were
heavy and many men came in dreadfully wounded. One man was the bravest I ever
met. He was in dreadful agony, for both legs had been blown off at the knee But
never a complaint fell from his lips, even while they dressed his wounds, and
he tried to make light of his injuries. Thank God, Father, he said, I am able
to stick it out to the end. Is it not all for little Belgium? The Extreme
Unction, as I have noticed time and again, eased his bodily pain. I am much
better now and easier, God bless you, he said, as I left him to attend a dying
man. He opened his eyes as I knelt beside him: Ah! Fr. Doyle, Fr. Doyle, he
whispered faintly, and then motioned me to bend lower as if he had some message
to give. As I did so, he put his two arms round my neck and kissed me. It was
all the poor fellow could do to show his gratitude that he had not been left to
die alone and that he would have the consolation of receiving the Last
Sacraments before he went to God. Sitting a little way off I saw a hideous
bleeding object, a man with his face smashed by a shell, with one if not both
eyes torn out. He raised his head as I spoke. Is that the priest? Thank God, I
am all right now. I took his blood-covered hands in mine as I searched his face
for some whole spot on which to anoint him. I think I know better now why
Pilate said Behold the Man when he showed our Lord to the people.
In the afternoon, while going my
rounds, I was forced to take shelter in the dug-out of a young officer
belonging to another regiment. For nearly two hours I was a prisoner and found
out he was a Catholic from Dublin, and had been married just a month. Was this
a chance visit, or did God send me there to prepare him for death, for I had
not long left the spot when a shell burst and killed him? I carried his body
out the next day and buried him in a shell hole, and once again I blessed that
protecting Hand which had shielded me from his fate.
The trench warfare of World War I was
a form of hell, where evil was present. But Jesus Christ the Risen Lord was
present there too - and recognised by so many soldiers, particularly at the
moment of death, through the presence of priests such as Fr Willie Doyle SJ,
whose inspiring life I first learned about in kindergarten in the late 1940s.
In celebrating Mass, in hearing confessions, in anointing dying soldiers, in
burying those who had died in battle, priests were bringing hope and light, the
hope and light that is Jesus himself, into the midst of an awful darkness. And
in some cases these priests were called to be configured literally to the dying
Christ so that they could say: the bread
that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh.
Today please pray
for all priests, without whom we could not have the Bread of Life.
Eucharist
