Dolindo Ruotolo, a diocesan priest and Franciscan tertiary who died in 1970, in Italy, was said to have been visited by Jesus and the Virgin “with intimate consolation.” During trials, he had the comfort of prayer, and of private consolation from the Virgin and Jesus — visions, words of knowledge, perhaps apparitions. 

At his deathbed (he died at 88), the scent of lilies permeated the air, and for a fleeting period, it seemed to those present that he was “seeing” into eternity, his apparently reanimated body floating lightly — levitated — from the bed as if going towards a vision: that of his Celestial Mother to whom he had consecrated his life and works.

His lasting effect, along with intercession, is in his writings.

Take, for example, his insightful, inspiring book, Come, Holy Spirit, wherein Father Ruotolo urges the faithful to seek what he called “the gift of Counsel.” This of course comes, as the book’s title indicates, from the Holy Spirit.

“The gift of Counsel gives the soul a supernatural light which makes it see clearly if the promptings of reason or the heart come from nature or from Grace,” he said.

“A soul who has received the gift of Counsel constantly walks in the living splendor of supernatural light, sees to the very core of every prompting of the heart, and uncovers all the malice nesting there, and all the tricks of Satan or illusions of a corrupt nature.

“The soul experiences a strong, interior impulse whereby it finds the power to face the truth and repress the promptings of nature, and can attain a wonderful purity of heart and a true holiness of life.”

These are traits that grant us not only tranquility on earth, but the opportunity for direct entry upon death to Heaven.

“The soul experiences the inspiration and promptings of the Holy Spirit as an interior voice which speaks to it and makes it hear the voice of justice and righteousness. This is the voice so often grossly mistaken for one’s own thoughts or for the voice of one’s own conscience.”

“The soul which listens to this interior voice ceases to trust itself, and yields to the continuous direction of the Holy Spirit,” wrote Father Ruotolo. “This abandonment is one of the greatest of graces and the ultimate term to which the gift of Counsel leads the soul.

“The Holy Spirit then governs and directs the affection of the heart, takes possession of it, and establishes there a perfect and imperturbable tranquility, provided the soul follows His light and His promptings and represses the promptings of nature at their onset.”

Is this not a title for Mary (Our Lady of Good Counsel)?

“We may say that the gift of Counsel is the great secret of the interior holiness of souls and of their saving activity for the benefit of others. This gift is necessary at critical moments of life when we cannot entrust ourselves to human reason, so uncertain, so subject to error, so slow in its intuitions and decisions,” wrote the holy priest, for whom Padre Pio had high praise.  

[resources: Come, O Holy Spirit. Father Ruotolo’s re-released book, Meditations on the Holy Rosary, is now also available here.