St. Philip Neri
Patron of Rome
If one had to choose one saint who showed the humorous side of holiness that would Philip Neri.
Born in 1515 in Florence, he showed the impulsiveness and spontaneity of his character from the time he was a boy. In fact one incident almost cost him his life. Seeing a donkey loaded with fruit for market, the little boy had barely formed the thought of jumping on the donkey's back before he had done it. The donkey, surprised, lost his footing, and donkey, fruit, and boy tumbled into the cellar with the boy winding up on the bottom! Miraculously he was unhurt.
His father was not successful financially and at eighteen Philip was sent to work with an older cousin who was a successful businessman. During this time, Philip found a favorite place to pray up in the fissure of a mountain that had been turned into a chapel. We don't know anything specific about his conversion but during these hours of prayer he decided to leave worldly success behind and dedicate his life to God.
After thanking his cousin, he went to Rome in 1533 where he was the live-in tutor of the sons of a fellow Florentine. He studied philosophy and theology until he thought his studies were interfering with his prayer life. He then stopped his studies, threw away his books, and lived as a kind of hermit.
Night was his special time of prayer. After dark he would go out in the streets, sometimes to churches, but most often into the catacombs of St. Sebastiano to pray. During one of these times of prayer he felt a globe of light enter his mouth and sink into his heart. This experience gave him so much energy to serve God that he went out to work at the hospital of the incurables and starting speaking to others about God, everyone from beggars to bankers.
In 1548 Philip formed a confraternity with other laymen to minister to pilgrims who came to Rome without food or shelter. The spiritual director of the confraternity convinced Philip that he could do even more work as a priest. After receiving instruction from this priest, Philip was ordained in 1551.
At his new home, the church of San Girolamo, he learned to love to hear confessions. Young men especially found in him the wisdom and direction they needed to grow spiritually. But Philip began to realize that these young men needed something more than absolution; they needed guidance during their daily lives. So Philip began to ask the young men to come by in the early afternoon when they would discuss spiritual readings and then stay for prayer in the evening. The numbers of the men who attended these meetings grew rapidly. In order to handle the growth, Philip and a fellow priest Buonsignore Cacciaguerra gave a more formal structure to the meetings and built a room called the Oratory to hold them in.
Philip understood that it wasn't enough to tell young people not to do something -- you had to give them something to do in its place. So at Carnival time, when the worst excesses were encouraged, Philip organized a pilgrimage to the Seven Churches with a picnic accompanied by instrumental music for the mid-day break. After walking twelve miles in one day everyone was too tired to be tempted!
In order to guide his followers, Philip made himself available to everyone at any hour -- even at night. He said some of the most devout people were those who had come to him at night. When others complained, Philip answered, "They can chop wood on my back so long as they do not sin."
Not everyone was happy about this growing group and Philip and Buonsignore were attacked by the priests they lived with. But eventually Philip and his companions were vindicated and went on with their work.
In 1555, the Pope's Vicar accused Philip of "introducing novelties" and ordered him to stop the meetings of the Oratory. Philip was brokenhearted but obeyed immediately. The Pope only let him start up the Oratory again after the sudden death of his accuser. Despite all the trouble this man had caused, Philip would not let anyone say anything against the man or even imply that his sudden death was a judgment from God.
One church, for Florentines in Rome, had practically forced him to bring the Oratory to their church. But when gossip and accusations started, they began to harass the very people they had begged to have nearby! At that point, Philip decided it would be best for the group to have their own church. They became officially known as the Congregation of the Oratory, made up of secular priests and clerics.
Philip was known to be spontaneous and unpredictable, charming and humorous.
He seemed to sense the different ways to bring people to God. One man came to the Oratory just to make fun of it. Philip wouldn't let the others throw him out or speak against him. He told them to be patient and eventually the man became a Dominican. On the other hand, when he met a condemned man who refused to listen to any pleas for repentance, Philip didn't try gentle words, but grabbed the man by the collar and threw him to the ground. The move shocked the criminal into repentance and he made a full confession.
Humility was the most important virtue he tried to teach others and to learn himself. Some of his lessons in humility seem cruel, but they were tinged with humor like practical jokes and were related with gratitude by the people they helped. His lessons always seem to be tailored directly to what the person needed. One member who was later to become a cardinal was too serious and so Philip had him sing the Misere at a wedding breakfast. When one priest gave a beautiful sermon, Philip ordered him to give the same sermon six times in a row so people would think he only had one sermon.
Philip preferred spiritual mortification to physical mortification. When one man asked Philip if he could wear a hair shirt, Philip gave him permission -- if he wore the hair shirt outside his clothes! The man obeyed and found humility in the jokes and name-calling he received.
There were unexpected benefits to his lessons in humility. Another member, Baronius, wanted to speak at the meetings about hellfire and eternal punishment. Philip commanded him instead to speak of church history. For 27 years Baronius spoke to the Oratory about church history. At the end of that time he published his talks as a widely respected and universally praised books on ecclesiastical history!
Philip did not escape this spiritual mortification himself. As with others, his own humbling held humor. There are stories of him wearing ridiculous clothes or walking around with half his beard shaved off. The greater his reputation for holiness the sillier he wanted to seem. When some people came from Poland to see the great saint, they found him listening to another priest read to him from joke books.
Philip was very serious about prayer, spending hours in prayer. He was so easily carried away that he refused to preach in public and could not celebrate Mass with others around. But he when asked how to pray his answer was, "Be humble and obedient and the Holy Spirit will teach you."
Philip died in 1595 after a long illness at the age of eighty years.
In his footsteps:We often worry more about what others think that about what God thinks. Our fear of people laughing us often stops us from trying new things or serving God. Do something today that you are afraid might make you look a little ridiculous. Then reflect on how it makes you feel. Pray about your experience with God.
Prayer:Saint Philip Neri, we take ourselves far too seriously most of the time. Help us to add humor to our perspective -- remembering always that humor is a gift from God. Amen
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Where can I get some prayer cards of St. Philip Neri.
I have been told that I should say the Novena to St. Philip Neri. I can't find the Novena.
Can you PLEASE send me the novena?
PLEASE
Pat
This was very helpful, and he is probally my favorite Saint since I am related to him.
I reccommend using this sight for research for it was very reliable
Disappointed, that the movie I purchased on DVD, did not accurately portray the real Philip Nerri. In the movie he was very poorly dressed and took care of the street children. Those who make movies of saints should study them well and portray them accurately. Other than that, he was such a wonderful example of a Christian.
I bought a DVD on the life of St Philip Neri and it was so different to what is written in this article. It was an Italian movie, dubbed in English. He was also shown to have died not after a long illness.. but just climbing into his bed and then the next thing, he dies peacefully. Rather confusing when there is such a lot of differences in his actual life and what the movie showed.
i 'm from sri lanka we do have a CHURCH IN HIS NAME AND I PERSONALLY DIDN'T KNOW OF HIS GREATNESS.WILL BUILD UP FAITH IN HIM AND LET HIM INSPIRE US .
Dear Saint Philip Neri please pray for Jacob that he finds the right path and for his parents that they find the strenght and wisdom to guide him. Thank you.
St Philip Neri reminds us that life can have it's humorous side and praise God that He does have one!
Thank you for the wonderful article on St. Philip Neri. He has only recently come to my attention ( I am sad to say). Wish I had known him all of my long years. I love his way of approaching people with humor and wisdom. Actually, I know a priest who was born on May 26TH and his parents named him Philip. Into his ninties he never lost his youthful exuberance and good humor and people flocked to his confessions. He was a very saintly humble man. And another priest who is thirty six years old and St. Philip Neri is his favorite saint. They are very much alike. Faith is a beautiful thing and it gives me joy to know that someday we will meet St. Neri and all of the good saints in Heaven.
St. Neri, please pray for my humility and love!
i was named after this saint and on reading this article, im proud of it. it sounds like he was great person
Chose this AWESOME person to be my confirmation Saint! I believe that what he did and what he stood for was amazing!!! Humour is a gift from God, something we often do forget!
It is indeed surprising to learn of his humility and humor.
By reading the life of St.Philip Neri I feel called to a life of humility.
A strong saint. I am proud to always be a member of his named church and school in Albuquerque, New Mexico aka Old Town. Super article.
I was looking for strength to continue looking for (really even focus enough to look for...) paid employment. So Saint Phillip Neri may help me to use my time well! Would he find humor in this? Is this a joke? The b.a. I got seems useless these 30 years later and the b.a. (bank account) is telling me that a negative number is a real number. I better google this real number thing... see, a life time learner!
Ah! Be cheerful -- it is stronger;it is of God. Let's fake it till we make it ...to heaven.
What a great inspiration reading about Phillip Neri for the first time. Humility is the 'Key Word'. I pray Saint Phillip will pray for us and may Christ have mercy on us to be able to be humble in our daily endeavors.
Like Mariana, I too share my birthday on this fascinating saint's feast day. St. Philip Neri has taught me to consider the virtue of humility as something to be sought through creative means. Also, like Mariana, he encourages doing things differently and then studying the reactions and outcome and then praying about this. This seems to be almost a scientific approach to spirituality by testing theories and allowing God to then guide us by the results. God shows us through St. Philip Neri that even humor has a place in His infinite store of treasures. God bless you.
this is very inspiring the way people accepted a persons faith in the previous generations as so much to say that are the words of the bible being over looked in order to predict the end of the world as we know it or rather as the generations before us knew it imagine if Phillip Neri lived today and acted the way he did in his life time truly the court department of community services doctors lawyers family friends that we all see in church would have him locked up in a mental hospital. I believe in god and the catholic faith and thank god for the bible and saints the world killed Jesus and have also put a stumbling block in front of so many people that would have done so much good in this world and allow so many wicked people free access to destroy so many lives.
What a truly wonderful article! You hear of so many who did physical mortification with hair shirts etc, and at last there is a saint who did not do it and yet he was still able to serve God completely in humility. His sense of humour was also so very refreshing. I have a new-found love and respect for this saint of whom i knew very little about.
One of the most famous members of the Oratorian order, Cardinal Newman, wrote[4] of Neri nearly three hundred years after his death, "he contemplated as the idea of his mission, not the propagation of the faith, nor the exposition of doctrine, nor the catechetical schools; whatever was exact and systematic pleased him not; he put from him monastic rule and authoritative speech, as David refused the armor of his king.... He came to the Eternal City and he sat himself down there, and his home and his family gradually grew up around him, by the spontaneous accession of materials from without. He did not so much seek his own as draw them to him. He sat in his small room, and they in their gay, worldly dresses, the rich and the wellborn, as well as the simple and the illiterate, crowded into it. In the mid-heats of summer, in the frosts of winter still was he in that low and narrow cell at San Girolamo, reading the hearts of those who came to him, and curing their souls' maladies by the very touch of his hand.... And they who came remained gazing and listening till, at length, first one and then another threw off their bravery, and took his poor cassock and girdle instead; or, if they kept it, it was to put haircloth under it, or to take on them a rule of life, while to the world they looked as before."
May the Lord be praised forever for sending us such an amazing, Super Saint!
This is the first time I've read about St. Philip Neri, and I'am aged 65. I've begun to see how much there is to the beauty and mystery of God and His people. Reading the internet about our heroic saints has helped me in my faith journey. To find out how this brilliant, beloved saint defended his detractors makes me think of myself. I've to be more considerate and thoughtful in my speech, before judging others, whom I perceive as "not liking" me or "talking behind my back".
It is interesting to observe St. Philip's humour. I think I'm OK here, because, I love humour which makes life more lively, cheerful and fun.
I'm impressed with St. Philip's holiness. I wish him to pray for us to be holy as this is what God wants from us.