Saint Philip Neri's Food for the Soul 1Q2025

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



As prescribed by Saint Neri, I posted one maxim per day starting with the one for September 27, 2024. This page is shall contain Saint Philip Neri's Maxim of the Day for 1Q2025.

January 2024

18. Before a man chooses his confessor, he ought to think well about it, and pray about it also; but when he has once chosen, he ought not to change, except for most urgent reasons, but put the utmost confidence in his director.

17. There is nothing which gives greater security to our actions, or more effectually cuts the snares the devil lays for us, than to follow another person’s will, rather than our own, in doing good.

16. They who really wish to advance in the ways of God, must give themselves up into the hands of their superiors always and in everything; and they who are not living under obedience must subject themselves of their own accord to a learned and discreet confessor, whom they must obey in the place of God, disclosing to him with perfect freedom and simplicity the affairs of their soul, and they should never come to any resolution without his advice.

15. Obedience is a short cut to perfection.

14. The name of Jesus, pronounced with reverence and affection, has a kind of power to soften the heart.

13. Men should often renew their good resolutions, and not lose heart because they are tempted against them.

12. A man should keep himself down, and not busy himself in mirabilibus super se.

This phrase comes from Psalm 131:1 in the Vulgate Bible, where the Psalmist says "Non est exaltatum cor meum, neque oculi mei superbios, neque ambulavi in mirabilibus super me" which means "My heart is not haughty, nor are my eyes lofty, nor do I walk in proud things too wonderful for me."

11. He who wishes to be perfectly obeyed, should give but few orders.

10. If God be with us, there is no one else left to fear.

9. God has no need of men

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8. Spiritual persons ought to be equally ready to experience sweetness and consolation in the things of God, or to suffer and keep their ground in drynesses of spirit and devotion, and for as long as God pleases, without their making any complaint about it.

7. Let no one wear a mask, otherwise he will do ill; and if he has one, let him burn

 

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6. He who wishes for anything but Christ, does not know what he wishes; he who asks for anything but Christ, does not know what he is asking; he who works, and not for Christ, does not know what he is doing.

5. It is well to choose some one good devotion, and to stick to it, and never to abandon it.

4. Happy is the youth, because he has time before him to do good.

3. We must not be behind time in doing good; for death will not be behind his time.

LORD, let me know my end, the number of my days,that I may learn how frail I am.
To be sure, you establish the expanse of my days; indeed, my life is as nothing before you.
Every man is but a breath. Psalm 39

2. Nulla dies sine linea: Do not let a day pass without doing some good.

Nulla dies sine linea is a Latin phrase meaning "no day without a line". The idea was originated by Pliny the Elder (Natural History, XXXV, 84), where the idea applies to the Greek painter Apelles, who did not go a day without drawing at least one line. The phrase itself is attested for the first time in the Proverbiorum libellus by Polydore Vergil (1470-1555).

1. WELL! when shall we have a mind to begin to do good?