Saint Philip Neri's Daily Food for the Soul 3Q2025

Welcome to the 3Q2025 Edition of St Philip's Maxims

Philip Romolo Neri, aka 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's Daily Food for the Soul 2Q2025

Saint Philip Neri's Daily Food for the Soul 1Q2025


Saint Philip Neri's Food for the Soul 4Q2024

The Power of Prayer: The Paraphrase and Compendium of the Gospel.

If you have never read the Bible, but want to know what is in it, take one minute and read the Our Father: it's a paraphrase

Maxims For July 2025

18. Beginners should look after their own conversion and be humble, lest they should fancy they had done some great thing, and so should fall into pride.

17. Nothing is more dangerous for beginners in the spiritual life, than to wish to play the master, and to guide and convert others.

16. He whose health will not permit him to fast in honor of Christ and our Blessed Lady, will please them much more by giving some alms more than usual

15. In order the better to gain souls, in visiting the sick, we ought to imagine that what we do for the sick man we are doing for Christ Himself; we shall thus perform this work of mercy with more love and greater spiritual profit.

14. We ought to be pleased to hear that others are advancing in the service of God, especially if they are our relations or friends; and we ought to rejoice that they share in whatever spiritual good we may have ourselves

 

13. When a man has fallen he ought to acknowledge it in some such way as this: “Ah, if I had been humble I should not have fallen!”

12. Humility is the true guardian of chastity

11. They who when they have got a little devotion think they are some great one, are only fit to be laughed at.

This maxim, like many others of Saint Philip Neri, emphasizes the importance of humility in the spiritual life. It critiques the tendency of individuals who, upon experiencing a small measure of religious devotion or spiritual progress, become overly proud or self-important, viewing themselves as having achieved great spiritual

10. When a man is reproved for anything, he ought not to take it too much to heart, for we commit a greater fault by our sadness than by the sin for which we are reproved.

9. The true medicine to cure us of pride, is to keep down and thwart touchiness of mind.

Emphasizes that managing one's sensitivity and defensiveness is key to overcoming pride. It suggests that by addressing the tendency to take things too personally or be easily offended, one can diminish the influence of pride in his or her life

8. In order to avoid all risk of vain-glory, we ought to make some of our particular devotions in our own rooms, and never seek for sweetnesses and sensible consolations in public places.

7. We ought not to publish or manifest to every one the inspirations which God sends us, or the favors He grants us. Secretum meum mihi! Secretum meum mihi!

Secretum meum mihi" is Latin for "my secret is mine" - the idea that some experiences, particularly those of faith or personal transformation, are deeply personal and may not be fully or easily explained to others. 

6. Let us pray God, if He gives us any virtue or any gift, to keep it hidden even from ourselves, that we may preserve our humility, and not take occasion of pride because of it.

5. Whenever we do a good work, and somebody else takes the credit of it, we ought to rejoice, and acknowledge it as a gift from God. Anyhow, we ought not to be sorry, because if others diminish our glory before men, we shall recover it with all the more honor before God.

4. A man ought never to say one word in his own praise, however true it may be, no, not even in a joking way.

3. In seeking for counsel it is necessary sometimes to hear what our inferiors think, and to recommend ourselves to their prayers.

2. Our Blessed Lady is the dispenser of all the favors which the goodness of God concedes to the Sons of Adam.

July 1.  We ought to make no account of abstinences and fasts, when there is self-will in the matter.

Implies that the spiritual value of fasting and abstinence is lessened or absent when performed out of self-will or a desire for personal gain, instead of genuine devotion and a desire to align with God's will.