Saint of the week: Philip Neri

You know that guy in your social circle, the one who walks into the honor roll breakfast and turns polite nibbling and sipping into actual, easy-going fun? That guy who laughs freely and generously when you tell a joke or a story, making you feel warm with affirmation? He’s the one who cracks a joke just when things are about to get too heavy, awkward, or tense. He’s the one who listens attentively, both drawing you to be honest about your anxieties and fears and also making you feel more hopeful. 

Filippo Romolo Neri was that guy, born in 1515 to well-off parents in Florence. As a toddler, he was nicknamed “Pippo buono” (”good little Phil”) for his easy smile and cheerful spirit. His mother died in his childhood, but he was later blessed with a loving stepmother. At age 18, his parents sent him to learn business from his uncle, expecting that Philip would inherit the business and make a career of it. 

But something happened to Philip—something mystical. He experienced a deep encounter with God’s love which he later marked as his “conversion,” his heart overflowing with joy that could not be contained. He decided to turn his whole life toward service. (He was also a terrible businessman, so that wouldn’t have worked out anyway.) 

Philip set out for Rome. He had neither money nor a job, but he wanted to be close to the heart of the Church. He arrived barefoot and heart-first into the aching city streets, carrying nothing but that easy smile, his worn Bible, and the wild hope that joy might still redeem the world.

In post-Renaissance Rome, the faith had grown lifeless. Much of the Church hierarchy was occupied by nobles who had purchased their offices and lived in lavish luxury and indifference toward their congregations. Politics and corruption riddled the clergy. People had abandoned regular Mass and sacraments. Glorious churches fell into ruin. Philip, his own heart on fire, arrived in a city as cold as ancient marble.

His first move: find somewhere to live and food to eat. A local family hired him to tutor their children in exchange for room and board. His students excelled, not because Philip was especially gifted academically, but because he loved them. Philip’s great gift for relationships simply brought out the best in people. 

For a few years, Philip seriously studied philosophy and theology and could have gone on to scholarly vocation, but once again: he loved people even more. He began a public ministry with simple everyday conversations on street corners.  How are you today? Where do you work? What are your plans for the future? Philip’s warm attention and humor attracted people into conversation, then into service, then back to church. He would always eventually ask, Well, friends: when shall we begin to do good? He was so natural and real. He knew popular music and loved laughing. He made holiness magnetic, irresistible, and sometimes hilarious.

Eventually, his work in the streets became formalized in the Congregation of the Oratory. Philip hadn’t planned to become a priest, but his spiritual director encouraged him to discern it. In 1551, he was ordained. People flocked to him for spiritual guidance and especially Confession. His ministry encompassed the founding of hospitals, services for pilgrims using the Appian Way, the building and restoration of churches, and even direction of many cardinals. 

In 1595, Philip died on the Feast of Corpus Christi. He had sensed his time was finished, even though his doctors pronounced him in better health than ever. That day he had spent hours and hours in the confessional. Before he went to bed, he said to his brother priests: “Last of all, we must die.”

Three hundred years after his death, the future St John Newman—a member of Philip’s congregation—wrote: “He came to the Eternal City and he sat himself down there, and his home and his family gradually grew up around him. He did not so much seek his own as draw them to him. He sat in his small room, and 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.”

As we so often strive to evangelize with the urgency of salvation, we ought to remember that comedy is a divine gift, made to open hearts and minds to receive truth and mercy. Humor can move us to genuine, instinctive responses to life and establish our universal common humanity. Saints can laugh, make jokes, and speak about the most sublime realities with a twinkle in their eyes.

Philip Neri’s feast is May 26.

____________

Subscribe to get the weekly newsletter with exclusive essays and other content.

Contact me. I am a Catholic author, artist, speaker, pilgrimage leader, and traveler.

I'd love to collaborate with you on your next retreat, day of reflection, pilgrimage, trip, or event.