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Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo went one day to the Carmelite convent to visit his dear friend Sr. Maria Giuseppina. Years earlier, Sr. Maria Giuseppina, on the brink of death from tuberculosis and spinal meningitis, had received a miraculous healing through the intercession of St. Francis Xavier, and Don Dolindo had been present when it happened. The miracle had bound these two saintly souls together in a close spiritual connection.
The mystical quality of their friendship lasted long past that first miracle: shortly before his death in 1970, Don Dolindo saw Sr. Maria Giuseppina—who died in 1948—leaning over him. She had foretold that he would pass away “in November from bronchopneumonia,” which is what came to pass. Blessed Giuseppina was beatified in 2008.
In the book Jesus, I Surrender Myself to You, Grazia Ruotolo, Don Dolindo’s niece, explains how her uncle and this Carmelite nun would “bear one another’s burdens” (Gal. 6:2) to an astonishing degree. If Sr. Maria Giuseppina was seized, for example, by one of her fierce migraines, and she had an unavoidable appointment to keep (she, like Dolindo, had many people flocking to her for spiritual guidance), she would send him a message through mutual friends: “Tell Don Dolindo that I’m feeling terribly unwell, and tonight I have to meet the Duchess of Aosta” (or whomever it might be).
On receiving her message, Don Dolindo would immediately pray: “Jesus, give me Maria Giuseppina’s pains.” She would instantly recover, and he would bear her pains until her important meetings were over. Then she would call their mutual friends again, saying, “Tell Don Dolindo to give me back my pains.”
In this way, their spiritual connection deepened as, back and forth, each took on sufferings for the other in times of need.
On this day when Dolindo came to the convent to visit her, Sr. Maria Giuseppina was taking longer than usual to come down. As Dolindo sat in the parlor, he began to pray in an unusual way: overcome with love for Our Lord, he started telling the objects in the room of his love.
“Jesus, I love You, and I say it to you, door,” he prayed. “Jesus, I love You, and I say it to You, table.” Everything from the table to the bench to the grating became an occasion to declare his effusion of love for Jesus.
When Sr. Giuseppina finally arrived in the parlor, she looked around in amazement.
“Father, what is happening?” she exclaimed. “Why is everything inside here shouting, ‘Jesus, I love You?’ How is it possible that from every wall, piece of furniture, and object in this room, I hear a distinct voice of God’s love?”
After I read this story, it remained in my heart as a reminder that when I am just waiting somewhere, or my mind is blank, or I’m too tired to focus on other forms of prayer, I, too, can follow Dolindo’s method of using what I see around me to help me pray.
This morning, as I was taking a walk through my neighborhood, I saw a deer at the edge of the woods nearby. As I watched it pass in front of me, I felt inspired to imitate Dolindo’s prayer.
Jesus, I love You, and I say it to you, deer.
After I interiorly prayed those words, the deer stopped, turned its head, and looked straight at me. At the same time, the first verse of Psalm 42 flooded my mind: “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God.” The deer continued to gaze at me for a few long moments, then turned and walked into the woods toward a stream.
I looked around again.
Jesus, I love You, and I say it to you, trees.
Jesus, I love You, and I say it to you, flowers.
Jesus, I love You, and I say it to you, birds.
The more I prayed Dolindo’s prayer, the more everything around me began to feel alive with God’s love. Instead of zoning out as I often do on my walks, now I was suddenly noticing everything. The tiny white flowers on the side of the road. The notes of birdsong emerging from the field. The misty drops of rain filling the air.
Everything I saw around me, the whole of creation, was exquisite—and it was resounding with God’s love for His people.
The declarations of love that I offered Him through His creation had started with Him, as all love does, and now they came right back to me. The “voice of God’s love,” as Sister Maria Giuseppina called it, was flowing all around me, filling the air like those misty drops of rain, covering everything in His glistening grace.
And in that moment, I knew two things: the world is alive with the love of God, and Don Dolindo is showing souls how to see that love everywhere we look.
Author’s Note: Special thanks to Maria Palma Smith for her translation of the English version of the book Jesus, I Surrender Myself to You.
This article originally appeared on the author’s Substack, Stories of Don Dolindo.
Image from Wikimedia Commons
