Father Doyle strives to encourage priests to take up their most important task as confessors, that of spiritual direction. Unfortunately confession have come to be a routine laundry list of sins, a penance of three Hail Marys and dismissal after absolution. Spiritual direction is a necessary part of the pastoral office to launch souls on the road to heaven and to keep them on the straight and narrow. All need spiritual direction from the Pope to the humblest little child. Father Doyle gives practical advice, which is useful not only to priests, but also to the faithful as well. St. Vincent Ferrer, the great Dominican saint, says the following about spiritual direction: "A person who has a director by whom he allows himself to be guided, whom he obeys in all his actions, great and small, will more easily and quickly arrive at perfection than he ever could by himself, even were he gifted with an enraordinary degree of intelligence and supplied with books explaining the nature of all the virtues and the means of acquiring them. "I should go still further and say that our Lord, without whom we can do nothing, will never bestow His grace on one, who having at his disposal a man capable of instructing and directing him, neglects this powerful means of sanctification, believing himself to be self-sufficient and that, by his own powers, he is capable of seeking and discovering the things necessary for salvation. "This way of obedience is the royal road leading men securely to the summit of that mysterious ladder over which the Lord seems to be leaning. It is the way trodden by all the holy Fathers of the desert. And, in general, all those who have tended toward perfection have followed this path." According to St. Gregory the Great, the fact that in some exceptional cases the Holy- Ghost Himself teaches the soul without human help in no way abrogates the general law. Should one find oneself without a spiritual director this book will provide much assistance to the soul wishing to come closer to Almighty God. In this book Father Doyle laments the fact that he was some times remiss in his priestly duty of spiritual direction in the confessional. We pray that all, confessors and penitents alike will find this book an aid to sanctification.
