Apostle of Joy

Yesterday was the feast of a saint dear to my heart, St Philip Neri, second apostle of Rome and founder of the Oratorians.

A Florentine, he went to Rome to seek his own sanctification and that of his neighbours. There he spent his time in prayer and study, practicing charity and mortification, before being ordained under obedience to his confessor. His ministry was devoted to penance, prayer, preaching, and promoting reception of the sacraments. He received the gift of prophecy, read consciences, performed miracles, received apparitions of our Lady and went into ecstasy during Mass. He died at midnight after the Feast of Corpus Christi. One of the most popular anecdotes in his life involved a business man who would leave church immediately after communion, without showing any hospitality to the guest he had received into his soul by offering even a moment's thanksgiving. One day St. Philip sent two servers with candles to accompany him and his sacramental Lord on the street, prompting him in the future to spend a time in prayer.

One of my favourite prayers is St. Philip's Act of Faith in the Real Presence:
O MY JESUS, dwelling in the Blessed Sacrament, as the meanest of Thy creatures, lost in my own nothingness, prostrate before the throne of Thy great Majesty, profoundly do I adore Thee with all my spirit, with all the powers of my soul; and here I acknowledge Thee, veiled beneath the Sacramental Species, as my God, my Creator, my last end. With true and living faith I believe that in this adorable Sacrament Thou Thyself, true God and true Man, art present, Who being the sole-begotten Son of God didst yet, from Thy great love for man, take to Thyself human flesh in the most pure womb of Mary ever Virgin, by the operation of the Holy Ghost; therefore wast Thou born poor, in a vile manger; therefore didst Thou live subject to men. And now that, having conquered death and Hell, Thou dost sit glorious at the right hand of Thy Father, I believe that, without abandoning the Heavenly throne of Thy glory, Thou dost yet dwell substantially and really in this ineffable Sacrament, wherein I glorify Thee as God in the firmament of Thy Church, as the Lamb enthroned upon His seat of love, as the Priest of the Sanctuary of all grace, as the sweet Manna of all consolation and as the Arbiter of my eternal fate in this court of mercy. Yes, my dear Jesus, all this I declare and believe, as Thou hast commanded me, and as Thy spouse, the Catholic Church, my mother, teaches. Amen.

Perhaps the best summary of St. Philip's life could be these words from St. Paul, the first on the fruits of the Spirit, which he bore in such abundance, and the second on the duties of the Christian.
"Fructus autem Spiritus est caritas, gaudium, pax, longanimitas, bonitas, benignitas, fides, modestia, continentia adversus huiusmodi non est lex." (Gal 5:22-23)
"Semper gaudete, sine intermissione orate, in omnibus gratias agite haec enim voluntas Dei est in Christo Iesu in omnibus vobis." (1 Thess 5:16-18)