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Fr. Robert E. Lindsay, S.J.
Volume 24

 

RETREAT MASTER AND SPIRITUAL DIRECTOR

Fr. Robert E. Lindsay, S.J.


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On how a teacher changed his life

Yes. Phil Donnelly. Tremendous impact. It was not so much the man, although Phil Donnelly was one of the great characters around our time. It was his class on the grace tract. It was the first time in my life as a Catholic--I was about twenty-seven years old--that I got to understand the effect of sanctifying grace. I learned that the formal effect of sanctifying grace was that we shared in the very nature of God. There was an intrinsic change in us, because of God's love, because of his Incarnation. That just blew me away. Being loved was a tremendous need in my life, always has been, and that this gift was totally gratuitous, totally unearned, from a transcendent God-it just reduced me sometimes to tears. It has been the basis of my own spiritual life and really of any spiritual direction that I have given. This efforting, this trying and scorching my soul with self-examination is for the birds, and I believe is straight out of hell. Yet I have met too many people, including myself, who use this extrinsic way of "growing in holiness" or in knowledge of God. It never worked with me, and I realized why in Phil Donnelly's course, which is, as I look back over my life, the single most significant event. If that had not happened, I would not have such peace and gratitude toward God at the age of seventy-six.

 

Born: April 26, 1929, Washington, District of Columbia

Entered: July 30, 1948, St. Isaac Jogues Novitiate, Wernersville, Pennsylvania

Ordained: June 18, 1960, Weston College, Weston, Massachusetts

 
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