Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Father Ed Dowling

The Soul of Sponsorship, The Friendship of Fr. Ed Dowling, S.J., and Bill Wilson in Letters, by Robert Fitzgeral, Hazeldon |Minnesota, 1995 opens with a forward by Ernest Kurtz. Father Ed Dowling, a Jesuit priest came to Bill Wilson to tell him that he was 'struck by the similiarity of the AA Twelve Steps and the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius."

"Father Ed remind him (Bill Wilson ), to turn his life and his will over to the care of God, and having done this, he was not now to sit in judgemnt on how he or the world was proceeding."

"When Bill asked whether there would be any satisfaction, the older man snapped back, |"Never, Never any." Bill was to be a person who would keep on reaching. In his reaching he would find God's goals, hidden in his own heart."

This is a moving and touching read with deep insights into the "practice of the presence of God" and a delightful tale of the friendship of these two greater than life friends.

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