10 Things St. Philip Neri Might Say to You Today

10 Things St. Philip Neri Might Say to You Today May 26, 2015

Because he said them some 500 years ago and we could afford to hear them every bit as much as the people he ministered to.

(With photos from my phone recently taken in Santa Maria in Vallicella – known as Chiesa Nouva – in Rome, where St. Philip Neri is buried.)

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

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2. There is nothing the devil fears so much, or so much tries to hinder, as prayer.

3. He who wishes to be wise without the true Wisdom, or saved without the Saviour, is not well, but sick – is not wise, but a fool.

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

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5. We must exercise the spirit which God gives us in prayer, and follow that; so that, when, for example, it inclines us to meditate on the Passion, we must not wish to meditate on some other mystery.

6. To leave our prayer when we are called to do some act of charity for our neighbour, is not really a quitting of prayer, but leaving Christ for Christ, that is, depriving ourselves of spiritual sweetnesses in order to gain souls.

7. We must not leave off our prayers be cause of distractions and restlessness of mind, although it seems useless to go on with them. He who perseveres for the whole of his accustomed time, gently recalling his mind to the subject of his prayer, merits greatly.

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8. The best remedy for dryness of spirit, is to picture ourselves as beggars in the presence of God and the Saints, and like a beggar, to go first to one saint, then to another, to ask a spiritual alms of them with the same earnestness as a poor fellow in the streets would ask an alms of us.

9. If a man finds it very hard to forgive injuries, let him look at a crucifix, and think that Christ has shed all His Blood for him, and not only forgave his enemies, but prayed the Eternal Father to forgive them also.

10. The love of God makes us do great things.

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