St. Philip Neri

Since I’m not on my laptop during lunch anymore (thank you, Lent), I had a chance to read more about St. Philip, my patron saint for the year. Man, what an awesome dude. Here are two of the things I learned today:

You can’t have a spirit of prayer without humility. If I want my prayer life to take off, I need to severely humble myself. St. Philip despised himself and never thought he did any good. When he thought he was getting too proud, he would do things like only shave half his beard. He gave penitents (people who came to him to have their confessions heard) similar mortifications, but he tailored each penance to each person’s needs. One woman who struggled with vanity came to confession twice in one day, and instead of hearing her confession a second time, St. Philip loudly chastised her in front of everyone. She was probably incredibly embarrassed, but she learned the lesson.

I need to identify what causes me to be too proud, and do things to humble myself in those areas. Perhaps I’m too proud of my clothes; I could wear sweats all week. But, before I make any decisions like that, I’m going to go to confession and see what my confessor/Jesus has to say.

      Pray constantly. The book discussed St. Philip’s advocacy of mental prayer, though it didn’t say what mental prayer. I assume it means praying in your head rather than out loud. I like to think I do that a lot, but St. Philip means be in a constant conversation with God.

I text my friends all the time. I should be talking to God even more than that, because He should be my very best friend.

St. Philip is such a cool guy; there are so many more lessons to learn through his life. The lives of all the saints are treasure troves of practical knowledge! I mean, they’re in heaven, so they obviously did something right. Sometimes I can FEEL them praying for me and helping God teach me. God is so good for providing me with such a loving and helpful faith family!

God bless,

Jill