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.