Abbey-Roads2

Today is the feast of St. Philip Neri (1515-1595).  Growing up, the nuns and priests always referred to him as the saint with a sense of humor, so I had this image of him as sort of a stand-up comic.  Exhibiting this joy in the spiritual life was a big deal in the late 1950’s and ’60’s. Catholics didn’t want to appear too strict - no one wanted any “plaster saints” as they used to say.

I have memories of many parish priest’s homilies usually opening with a joke, to warm up the crowd.  Photos of nuns filling baseball stadiums were big ice breakers, as were photos of sisters playing baseball.  I seem to remember a June Alyson movie about a baseball playing nun.  It was probably an American thing to do.  After the Council, we came to realize even more how human and fun priests and religious could be.

It was the joy of the Holy Spirit that St. Philip should be noted for, rather than for his humor or cheerfulness.  Maybe some stuff in his life was ‘funny’, such as his mangled chalice, preserved today,  gnawed and bent up.  He used to bite down on the chalice to keep himself from going into ecstasy at Mass.  Now that’s kind of amusing.  But he wasn’t a comedian.  (He was permitted to celebrate Mass privately, which took hours, because he would be rapt in ecstasy.)

He lived for a long time as a layman, a familiar amongst the common people of Rome, a habit he continued after his ordination.  (He is known as the “Apostle of Rome”.)  He attracted to himself men and boys, whom he instructed in the faith and piety, often presenting to them the ascetical practices of the Church in a humorous manner, thereby causing them (penance) to be more appealing to undertake.  He was, nevertheless, a remarkable mystic, intensely devoted to the Holy Spirit, or the Love of God, from Whom he received many signal graces.

Holy Father, John Paul II had this to say about St. Philip Neri:

“Leafing through the biography of St Philip, in fact, one is surprised and fascinated by the cheerful and relaxed method he used to educate, supporting each person with fraternal generosity and patience. As is well known, the saint used to put his teaching into short and wise maxims: “Be good, if you can”; “Scruples and melancholy, stay away from my house”; “Be simple and humble”; “He who does not pray is a speechless animal”; and, bringing his hand to his forehead, “Holiness is three fingers deep”. Behind the cleverness of these and many other “sayings”, we are aware of the acute and realistic knowledge he had acquired of human nature and the dynamics of grace. He translated the experience of his long life and the wisdom of a heart inhabited by the Holy Spirit into these immediate, terse teachings. These aphorisms have now become a patrimony of wisdom as it were for Christian spirituality.

2. St Philip appears against the background of the Roman Renaissance as the “prophet of joy”, who had decided to follow Jesus, even while being actively involved in the culture of his time, which in many respects is particularly close to that of today.” - Letter on the IV Centenary of the Death of St. Philip Neri

New Advent has an edifying, but brief biography of him.  The jokester image of him is a modern distortion.