Daily Food For The Soul Using Saint Philip Neri's Maxims

The long journey to personal holiness starts but with a single daily prayer - paraphrasing Saint Philip Neri

Philip Romolo Neri, sometimes referred to as the Second Apostle of Rome after Saint Peter, was an Italian Catholic priest who founded the Congregation of the Oratory, a society of secular clergy dedicated to pastoral care and charitable work. Neri's spiritual mission emphasized personal holiness and direct service to others, particularly through the education of young people and care for the poor and sick. His work played a significant role in the Counter-Reformation


Saint Philip Neri was known as “Saint of Joy,” for his cheerfulness and sense of humor as well as his profound insights in the confessional and his mentoring of young people through friendship. While he left few written documents, his friends and disciples fortunately collected his sayings and wrote them down; these were translated into English by Fr. F.W. Faber of the London Oratory, a contemporary of Saint John Newman’s. The Oxford Oratory has just published a new edition of The Maxims and Sayings of St Philip Neri.

Fr Faber writes: The purpose of the maxims cannot be better described than in the words of the Italian editor: “It was the aim and study of the holy father, Philip Neri, to introduce among Christians a daily spiritual repast. His children, who have drunk of the spirit of their holy father, have always sought to cultivate this custom of a spiritual repast among devout persons; and among the plans which they have tried, and the practices they have introduced, one, gentle reader, is a collection of the sayings and doings of the Saint, distributed into the number of the days of the year, to the end that every one might have each day, either a maxim to meditate upon, or a virtue to copy. The method of using these sayings and doings, is to read only one of them each day, and that the one set apart for the current day, (for to read more would not be food but curiosity,) and then to regulate the actions of the day by that maxim or example. I am sure that by doing this you will reap an abundant harvest, especially if to the maxim or example you add some particular devotion to the Saint who was the author of it. I think it useless to make any long commendation of this practice; but it is well you should know that by the daily suggestion of such truths, the fruit which the saint obtained in Rome was immense; and so also will it be in your soul if you practise it in a true spirit of devotion. Farewell.” F.W. FABER.


As prescribed by Saint Neri, I shall endeavor to post one maxim per day starting with the one for September 27.he'll.

OCTOBER

4. We ought to desire to be in such a condition as to want sixpence, and not be able to get it.

3. To speak of ourselves without cause, saying, “I have said,” “I have done,” incapacitates us for receiving spiritual consolations.

2. We must continually pray to God for the conversion of sinners, thinking of the joy there is in heaven both to God and the angels in the conversion of each separate sinner.

1. In passing from a bad state to a good one there is no need of counsel, but in passing from a good one to a better, time, counsel, and prayer must go to the decision.

September

30. The best way to prepare for death is to spend every day of life as though it were the last.

September 29. Let us think, if we only got to heaven, what a sweet and easy thing it will be there to be always saying with the angels and the saints, Sanctus, Sanctus, Sanctus.


September 28. We should not be quick at correcting others, but rather to think of ourselves first.

September 27. Men of rank ought to dress like their equals, and be accompanied by servants, as their state requires, but modesty should go along with it all.