What an amazing reality that the immensity of eternal joy in heaven will include deep and unimaginable friendships with beloveds of God such as Father Willie Doyle, SJ, Irish front-line WW I chaplain-hero. Read about him here.

This is part of a letter (to his father?) included in To Raise the Fallen: A Selection of the War Letters, Prayers, and Spiritual Writings of Fr. Willie Doyle, S.J. , written soon after the Battle of Messines Ridge, France, June 7, 1917, two months before his death:

“As I knew there was no chance of saying Mass the next morning, I had taken the precaution of bringing several consecrated particles with me, so that I should not be deprived of Holy Communion. It was the Feast of Corpus Christi, and I thought of the many processions of the Blessed Sacrament which were being held at that moment all over the world. Surely there was never a stranger one than mine that day, as I carried the God of Consolation in my unworthy arms over the bloodstained field. There was no music to welcome his coming save the scream of a passing shell; the flowers that strewed his path were the broken, bleeding bodies of those for whom he had once died; and the only altar of repose he could find was the heart of one who was working for him alone, striving in a feeble way to make him some return for all his love and goodness. “ p. 78

Præstet fides supplementum
Sensuum defectui.

Father Willie Doyle, pray for us and increase our love for the Most Holy Eucharist!