St. Philip Neri, the founder of the Congregation of the Oratory, is not nearly as well known as he should be. The “Saint of Joy,” as he is called, was known for his cheerfulness and sense of humor as well as his profound insights in the confessional and his mentoring of young people through friendship and fellowship.
This 16th-century Italian saint is connected most directly to English-speaking Catholics through St. John Henry Newman, who chose the Congregation of the Oratory as the form of religious life that he, newly reconciled with Rome, chose for himself and his friends who had converted alongside him. Newman founded the Birmingham Oratory, the first of the English Oratories. (As it happens, it was at this oratory, not too many years later, that a boy, one John Ronald Reuel Tolkien, took “Philip” as his confirmation name. That, however, is another story.)
St. Philip left few written documents, but his friends and disciples fortunately collected his sayings and wrote them down; these were translated into English by Father F.W. Faber of the London Oratory, a contemporary of Newman’s. I was delighted to discover that the Oxford Oratory has just published a new edition of “The Maxims and Sayings of St. Philip Neri” in the same format as their excellent Oratory Prayer Book, which is arranged such that there is one saying per day, providing a pithy thought to reflect on. It can also be very illuminating to go through the Maxims with a particular theme in mind and see what St. Philip has to say about it.
‘A renewed focus on the Eucharist can have a profound impact on our spiritual lives, if we are diligent and persistent.’
St. Philip had a great devotion to the Blessed Sacrament, observing: “Our sweet Jesus, through the excess of His love and liberality, has left Himself to us in the Most Holy Sacrament.” (June 6) He exhorts us, “Let all go to the Eucharistic table with a great desire for that Sacred Food. Sitientes! Sitientes! (Thirsting! Thirsting!)” (June 7).
The United States has just had a National Eucharistic Congress, the first in 80 years. From north, south, east and west in America, the Blessed Sacrament was carried in procession, culminating in a great procession through the streets of Indianapolis, and tens of thousands of attendees participated in Eucharistic Adoration as well as attending Mass. It was a powerful experience, and now these attendees (and the many more who watched the events on livestream or recordings) are back at home.
While many attendees have had powerful experiences, the real test is whether these will result in lasting spiritual growth. It can be very hard to move from the “high” of a mountaintop moment at a conference or event, to the quotidian reality of day-to-day life.
How would St. Philip advise us to build on this national moment of worship and prayer?
To begin with, we can benefit from his down-to-earth approach to the spiritual life. It can be tempting to chase after the emotions that attended a powerful experience, as if this would secure the graces we experienced at that earlier moment. However, St. Philip advises us, “Prayer and communion are not to be made or desired for the sake of the devotion we feel in them, for that is seeking self, and not God; but we must be frequent in both the one and the other in order to become humble, obedient, gentle, and patient” (June 4).
If tears flowed at a moment when we were deeply moved in prayer or in a moment of corporate worship, or if we observe others who are overcome with emotion, we might make the mistake of taking the outward expression of emotions as a new benchmark against which we have to measure our everyday prayer life (and find it wanting). It’s easy to be discouraged if we unconsciously consider outward expressions of emotion as being evidence of real spiritual growth: What happens if we are always dry-eyed at Mass and don’t feel so much as a quiver of emotion at Adoration? As St. Philip puts it, “Perfection does not consist in such outward things as shedding tears and the like, but in true and solid virtues. Tears are no sign that a man is in the grace of God, neither must we infer that one who weeps when he speaks of holy and devout things necessarily lives a holy life” (Feb. 5 and 6). Tears sometimes accompany a powerful experience of the grace of God, but this often has more to do with a person’s temperament than anything else; it is simply more natural for some people than for others to show their emotions outwardly.
Mountaintop moments give us a glimpse of things beyond our everyday experiences, and serve to strengthen our faith and encourage us to persevere. When we come back down to the valley of ordinary life, after an experience in which prayer and devotion felt natural or easy, we can expect there to be difficulties in getting back into the routine. But we mustn’t lose heart. As
St. Philip, who was immensely practical, explained, “We must not leave off prayers because of distractions and restlessness of mind, although it seems useless to go on with them. He who perseveres through the whole of his accustomed time, gently recalling his mind to the subject of his prayer, merits greatly” (March 11).
A renewed focus on the Eucharist can have a profound impact on our spiritual lives, if we are diligent and persistent. St. Philip offers some advice that is deeply practical for going forward with increased devotion to the Blessed Sacrament: “It is not a good thing to load ourselves with many spiritual exercises; it is better to undertake a little, and go on with it; for if the devil can persuade us to omit an exercise once, he will easily get us to omit it a second time, and the third, until at last all our pious practices will melt away” (June 11).
For instance, if you have never had the practice of a Holy Hour, but are motivated by the Eucharistic Congress to start participating regularly in Eucharistic Adoration, I would suggest starting small and working your way up. There is no requirement that Adoration has to be 60 minutes in length, and I, for one, find that I am much more inclined to do it (rather than just think “it would be a good thing to do sometime”) if I aim for 15 to 20 minutes, rather than a whole hour. The point is to spend time with the Lord – however long that might be.
I will close with the pairing of two sayings of St. Philip that I find particularly encouraging with regard to our journey of faith:“The great thing is to become saints” (Nov. 1).
“One of the most excellent means of perseverance is discretion; we must not wish to do everything at once, or become a saint in four days” (Aug. 19).
St. Philip Neri, pray for us!
Dr. Holly Ordway is the Cardinal Francis George Professor of Faith and Culture at the Word on Fire Institute, and Visiting Professor of Apologetics at Houston Christian University.