July 3, 2022

Dear St. Martin of Tours Parishioners and Friends,

I have mentioned this prayer before, but it's so important that I wanted to write about it again, namely the prayer of surrender of Fr. Dolindo Ruotolo (Oct. 6, 1882, Naples, Italy – November 19,1970). In my former post about this prayer, I commented how Dolindo's contemporary, the more famous St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina, once said to a group of pilgrims from Naples, "Why do you come here, if you have Don Dolindo in Naples? Go to him, he’s a saint!" St. Pio also once told Fr. Dolindo, "the whole of paradise is in your soul."

"Dolindo” means “Pain” and his life was rich with this pain. Physically, he suffered all his life from pain in all his members. By the end of his life he was paralyzed by arthritis. He suffered spiritual and emotional pain. He was under investigation by the Vatican whose more modern wing couldn't accept Dolindo's thirty-three volumes of Scriptural Commentary which relied on the more mystical tradition of interpretation used by the Church Fathers. In fact all his works were put on the index of forbidden books! He was also for a time forbidden from saying Mass publicly. Throughout it all, Dolindo continued to pray and to minister to the thousands of people of Naples who came to him daily for prayer and Confession. He performed many miracles. His Faith, Hope, and Charity were heroic. He was sustained by heavenly communications with Jesus throughout his life.

Fr. Dolindo helped others whose faith and hope needed supernatural healing. So many were, and still are, afflicted with a deep mistrust in Jesus' personal love for us, and recognizing this Dolindo was inspired to give the People of God a special prayer of great power.

St. Padre Pio of Pietrelcina gave this advice: "Pray, hope, and don't worry!" Jesus revealed himself through St. Faustina with the prayer, "Jesus, I trust in you!" And Fr. Dolindo gave us The Surrender Prayer: "Oh Jesus, I abandon myself to you - take care of everything!"

That short prayer contains in itself these lessons from Jesus in his Sermon on the Mount: "Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothes? Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they? Can any one of you by worrying add a single hour to your life. And why do you worry about clothes? See how the flowers of the field grow. They do not labor or spin. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was dressed like one of these. If that is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you—you of little faith? So do not worry, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the pagans run after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own" (Matthew 6:25-34); "Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened. Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him! So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets" (Matthew 7:7-12).

The Prayer of the Surrender Novena, in its most concise form is simply to say the prayer ten times, for nine days in a row; or if you are really in need, say it ten times at nine distinct times throughout the day.

This is in the one novena that has truly never every been known to fail. Give to Jesus your worries, your hopes, your problems, your loved ones; give to Him those who have aggrieved you, those who need conversion, those whom you have hurt; give to Him your past, your future, and your present; give to Him the whole world; give to Him your whole soul.

"Oh Jesus, I abandon myself to you - take care of everything!"