Sister Emmanuel had a Canadian friend who was suffering terrible injustices at work. A colleague had made her into a scapegoat, and for years she had been facing this woman’s vitriol. Day after day, Sister’s friend had to go into work and bear the brunt of this colleague’s hatred. The way she was treated felt “like a scourging,” Sister Emmanuel writes in her April 2024 report.
There was no way out. This colleague’s actions made the woman’s workplace insufferable. But Sister Emmanuel’s friend, a devout Catholic, didn’t seek vengeance. Instead, she did what Jesus says to do in Matthew 5:44: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.”
“Every day,” Sister Emmanuel explains, “she lifted this person up to God and kept on forgiving her.”
One day, Sister Emmanuel told her friend about Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo, and about his surrender prayer that has been spreading around the world like wildfire: “Jesus, I surrender myself to you, You take care of it!”
After learning about Don Dolindo and his prayer, Sister’s friend was all in. For so long, she had been praying for and forgiving her persecutor; now she decided to surrender the situation entirely to God. She had done all she could. The rest she was abandoning to Jesus. The situation was beyond her own power, so she turned to God alone to take care of everything.
“Every day, she presented her ‘enemy’ to the Lord, and surrendered this impossible situation into His hands, asking Him to take care of it Himself,” Sister Emmanuel writes. “In short, she let her cause fall into God’s hands, as if to say to Him: ‘This is YOUR problem!’”
She continued to pray for her persecutor. She continued to forgive. And to those pillars of prayer and forgiveness, she added the pillar of surrender.
Not long afterward, Sister’s friend received news that changed everything: The executive board of the company had asked her persecutor to leave her position.
The new colleague who was hired to replace her was “an honest and sensitive woman,” Sister Emmanuel says, and peace descended upon the office at long last.
Hearing this story, I can only think that Don Dolindo must have felt a special kinship with Sister’s friend and an empathy with her sufferings because of the trials he endured in his own life. Throughout his priesthood, Dolindo was crucified by false accusations, betrayals, and terrible injustices. And in the face of these agonizing sufferings, he never once sought vengeance. Instead, with heroic virtue, he prayed for his persecutors, he forgave them, and he surrendered everything to the Will of God.
Deeply united with the suffering Heart of Jesus, Dolindo’s pierced heart overflowed with love for his persecutors.
When one of his spiritual daughters betrayed him in an excruciatingly painful way, Dolindo writes in his autobiography, “I understood how Jesus could love his killers! Never have I felt such fatherly love for this dear child as I did this morning. … I would like her to know one day how, even in the depths of the extreme agony she caused me, I prayed emphatically for her, before Blessed Jesus. What does my ignominy matter? O that the Lord may always be glorified in everything!”
Dolindo’s whole life was a testimony to the pillars of prayer, forgiveness, and surrender. Because of his total abandonment to the Will of God, his spiritual children throughout the world are receiving miracles, big and small, through his intercession.
Don Dolindo “is working hard from Heaven,” Sister Emmanuel writes, “relieving, soothing, even healing a large number of people from anxiety, fear and anguish in the face of life’s trials. He works for free at your home, silently. And in these days, Heaven wants to give everyone the grace to be healed from fear.”
Special thanks to Maria Palma Smith for the use of her English translation of the book Amore, Dolindo, Dolore (Casa Mariana Editrice “Apostolato Stampa”, 2001). Publication of the English translation is forthcoming from Academy of the Immaculate Publishing.
Special thanks also to Sr. Emmanuel for sharing this story in her April 2024 report.
Maura Roan McKeegan is the author of twelve Catholic picture books, including the award-winning Old and New series (Emmaus Road Publishing); Julia Greeley, Secret Angel to the Poor (Ignatius Press); and Seven Clues: A Catholic Treasure Hunt (Loyola Press), co-authored with Scott Hahn. She is also a contributor to various magazines. She writes about Servant of God Don Dolindo Ruotolo at her Substack site, Stories of Don Dolindo.