From Knox's Pastoral and Occasional Sermons (Ignatius Press, 2002):
If he was not a rebel, Philip was nevertheless a reformer. So were all the saints of his age. The sixteenth century was such a crisis in the history of religion that you could not be sensitized to its atmosphere without becoming either a rebel or a reformer, or both at once. And because Rome was, then as always, the capital of our fortunes, the cleaning-up process must needs begin at Rome. Even in the Middle Ages, they told the cynical story of a Jew who had been converted to Rome, and explained, in answer to his questioners, that the Catholic religion must be true if it could survive so much of corruption in high places as this. And the Renaissance, that splendid rediscovery of the classical tradition, that splendid flowering of scholarship and of the arts, only served to debase the lives and the thoughts of many among those who were influenced by it. A city that is built on a mountain-top, our Lord warns us, cannot be hidden; and it is in the same context that he uses the words of my text, “If salt loses its taste, what is there left to give taste to it?” Salt of the earth, it was for Rome to save the world from corruption; when Rome itself was corrupt, what was to be done with it? That was the problem which faced the saints of the Counter-Reformation, and St Philip in particular.
I say, St Philip in particular, because God raised him up to be, in a special sense, the Apostle of Rome. All the great founders of religious institutes have made their way to Rome, as St Ignatius did, because it would give them the necessary leverage for doing good in other parts of Christendom. St Philip made no calculations of that kind; he made no calculations of any kind. He drifted to Rome because that was God’s will for him; and he set about spreading abroad the love of God there, not because he thought it was a very wicked place; he would have done the same anywhere else. Only, that was just what was wanted. When a fire is in danger of going out, you will do no good aiming your bellows now at this point, now at that, blowing furious blasts at the struggling flames which only need that to extinguish them. No, you must find out first of all, by a series of experiments, which is the real focus which responds to your efforts, and then keep on fanning that one spot, always the same spot quite gently, quite patiently, till the fires spreads all round. Rome is the heart and focus of Christendom; and Philip could not have done better service to his Master than by fanning the dull embers that seemed so unresponsive, there in Rome.
But it would be grossly unhistorical to suggest that his was a lonely protest. On the contrary, he lived under a series of reforming popes; he was the contemporary and the friend of St Charles Borromeo, who did more than any other man to restore Church discipline in accordance with the canons of Trent. Everywhere bishops were being told to put their sees in order; the luxury of the Papal court was being repressed, the Holy Office was bringing to light those strange aberrations of doctrine which an age of restless intellectual activity had allowed to creep in. Meanwhile, St Ignatius and his companions were holding up to the world an incomparable example of organization and discipline. What need, we are tempted to ask, for a Philip as well?
I say, St Philip in particular, because God raised him up to be, in a special sense, the Apostle of Rome. All the great founders of religious institutes have made their way to Rome, as St Ignatius did, because it would give them the necessary leverage for doing good in other parts of Christendom. St Philip made no calculations of that kind; he made no calculations of any kind. He drifted to Rome because that was God’s will for him; and he set about spreading abroad the love of God there, not because he thought it was a very wicked place; he would have done the same anywhere else. Only, that was just what was wanted. When a fire is in danger of going out, you will do no good aiming your bellows now at this point, now at that, blowing furious blasts at the struggling flames which only need that to extinguish them. No, you must find out first of all, by a series of experiments, which is the real focus which responds to your efforts, and then keep on fanning that one spot, always the same spot quite gently, quite patiently, till the fires spreads all round. Rome is the heart and focus of Christendom; and Philip could not have done better service to his Master than by fanning the dull embers that seemed so unresponsive, there in Rome.
But it would be grossly unhistorical to suggest that his was a lonely protest. On the contrary, he lived under a series of reforming popes; he was the contemporary and the friend of St Charles Borromeo, who did more than any other man to restore Church discipline in accordance with the canons of Trent. Everywhere bishops were being told to put their sees in order; the luxury of the Papal court was being repressed, the Holy Office was bringing to light those strange aberrations of doctrine which an age of restless intellectual activity had allowed to creep in. Meanwhile, St Ignatius and his companions were holding up to the world an incomparable example of organization and discipline. What need, we are tempted to ask, for a Philip as well?
Knox also has an essay about St. Philip Neri in Captive Flames: On Selected Saints and Christian Heroes. For more on St. Philip Neri:
• The Life Of St. Philip Neri, by Antonio Gallonio
• St. Philip Of The Joyous Heart, by Francis X. Connolly, S.P.S.
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